re: The 40 most important players in college football in 2025

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You'd think that if there was some grand burnt orange media conspiracy this wouldn't be the case.

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Well, it's a big brand. I do think Texas gets the benefit of the doubt a lot of times. And there's also a sort of glee about tearing them down after building them up that doesn't occur on the same scale with other teams outside of the other big names. I also think there's something about being the flagship school of Texas, since the state itself and how we carry ourselves here creates some inherent polarization. A team like TCU, for example, when they were recently playing for the national championship, doesn't really tap into the inherent feelings about Texas as a state that the University of Texas does.

I don't know that it's a conspiracy. It's more like natural human dynamics in play. The big conspiracy theorists are over in College Station, but as you know that's mostly fueled by an institutionalized inferiority complex and little brother syndrome. They feel like Texas gets more attention than they deserve. I think they're right much of the time, but it's mixed with this feeling that A&M doesn't get as much attention as it deserves, and that's just victim mongering. A&M simply isn't as big a brand as Texas. Maybe that's unfair. I don't know. But that's the way it is. A&M can still be a big brand, but their focus as an institution is using Texas as the measuring stick. That's going to create all kinds of unhealthy dynamics for them. But that's their problem.