TAMU87

A&M Class of 91

Agreed, on the what if's. My point was if Johnston, would have survived and completed a decisive Victory at Shiloh, things would have been much different. Grant would have been weaken, and the Confederates would have been more aggressive in the West, making the taking of Vicksburg, more difficult. More importantly the North would have had to put more resources in the West and would have thus had less resource in the East to fight Lee, and the Army of Northern Virginia.

Another big what if would be if Gen. Stonewall Jackson would not have been Wounded/Killed in the evening of the 2nd day of the battle of Chancellorsville would the Confederates been able to take advantage of there position and push through with a very decisive victory, two Months before Gettysburg.

So many what if's...

Another great Texas General, Albert Sidney Johnston the highest ranking General Killed in the War between the States, at the battle of Shiloh. He was a highly respected General, who's loss was a tough blow for the south, in the West.

FYI, He was also a Former General the US Army and the in the Republic of Texas Army. A native of Kentucky, he made Texas his Adaptive home, he owned a Plantation in Brazoria County southwest of present day Houston.

Albert Sidney Johnson

Texas Most famous Civil War fighting force was Hood's Texas Brigade of the Army of North Virginia, a member of Longstreet's Corps.

It initially comprised the 1st, 4th, and 5th Texas regiments, the 18th Georgia Infantry, and Hampton's South Carolina Legion.

After the battle of Antietam in 1862, the Georgians and South Carolinians were reassigned to other brigades. Then The 3rd Arkansas Infantry was added due to their being the only other trans-Mississippi regiment and single Arkansas regiment serving with Lee's army.

The Texas Brigade, along with the Stonewall Brigade from Virginia, were considered to be the Army of Northern Virginia's shock troops.By the war's end, the Texas Brigade had fought in all the battles engaged in by the Army of Northern Virginia except Chancellorsville.

The brigade's most famous action took place on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, during its fight for Devil's Den. Though the Confederacy ultimately lost that battle, the 1st Texas, 4th Texas, 5th Texas, and 3rd Arkansas distinguished themselves in taking Devil's Den despite being greatly outnumbered and suffering heavy casualties.

State of Texas with Five players in the first round, two from Houston.

This is a long post but I am very familiar with the Texas A&M Foundation and PUF Endowment. In terms of the Texas PUF Fund, the numbers for that fund over the next 5 years should more than double almost triple due to the new Texas shale horizontal natural gas drilling taking place on public land in south and west Texas. There is a drilling boom going on with the Natural gas shale play that will be a windfall to the PUF over the coming years, even if Natural gas prices stay low. Also the amount to land being leased out over just the last year is staggering ( ExxonMobil, Devon Energy and Anadarko Petroleum).

At meeting I was in at the Foundation in College Station, we were told that the PUF had a 20% increase last year, and now expect a 25-30 percent average increase in the fund each year for next five year, almost tripling the size of PUF assets. The Texas A&M Endowment could be pushing 18 Billion by 2018. This is directly correlated to the Natural Gas shell drilling boom going on Texas at this time. Another note as previously stated both University of Texas and A&M may only use the interest of these funds for capital improvements, but they are able to go to the bond markets and raise capital in the Municipal market getting AAA rating using the cash flow to fund the capital improvements. A&M is now putting together plans on where to use this future cash flow windfall for very large capital improvements on the College Station Campus.

FYI, please note this is not athletic related as the Texas A&M endowment as it is related to the PUF can not be used for Athletic Funding.

On a side note, I thought this was funny, I was heard TU approached A&M with a crazy Idea of both going in together using PUF funds to float bonds to build a High speed rail connection between Austin’s TU Campus and A&M College Station, in the future. My take they want to use PUF money as a green initiative between the two flagship campuses. The leadership in Austin thinks so much more to the left politically than leadership in College Station, it is amazing. Also, there is a growing worry in Austin that as the two University endowments grow at a high speed in the coming years due to the Energy boom in Texas, that the two State chartered flagship Universities will have political pressure at sometime to share with other state universities, i.e. Texas Tech, Sam Houston, SFA, some of there PUF Funds. There is a growing sense that A&M and Texas much work even hearded together with the legisator to protect our intrests. My take as this happens you will see A&M and Texas within the next 2-4 years come together and renew our athletic rivalries on the field of play also. We work together within the state of Texas on to many other fronts. After the TU AD retires you will see pressure from multiple sources to push Texas to play A&M once again, right now the TU leadership needs to save face with the loss of A&M.

Wait a second, I did not mean to post this as something concerning A&M. I just saw this link on another site and thought it was interesting that Florida State was in the Top five of the list. A reason Florida State should be a target for #14.

Look A&M is at the bottom of the list. This was post had nothing to do about A&M , LSU, ARK, just a good list of names for number 14. I was not trying to start any crap. I do not know why they picked 1976 as the date on that site, my guess it was just the last 35 years. Sorry to upset some of y'all, it was not intended.

Trust me as a former Student and season ticket holder, I understand where A&M has been the last ten years in terms of winning %.

FYI, I also noted that Virgina Tech and Clemson were two other good options for a 14th team.

If Clemson was in North Carolina instead of South Carolina, I would bet the SEC would be ready to soon vote them into the SEC as number 14. They would be perfect, but are located in the wrong state.

This is all about TV sets and the new SEC network.