12th Man Magazine

Editor
Homer Jacobs

Contributing Writers
Rusty Burson
Jim Molony

Contributing Photographers
Kevin Bartram
Glen Johnson

Inside the Aggies | Roll right went wrong. | Q&A with Wally Groff | Stewart vs. Frost

Inside the Aggies.

In hindsight, no foresight.

By Homer Jacobs

"Unless we're caught looking the other way when UCLA comes to town, we ought to still be undefeated when we play Colorado here. And if we beat Colorado, we ought to still be undefeated when we get to the league championship game."
- A Longhorn insider
Dave Campbell's Texas Football

Assuming this "Longhorn insider" doesn't prognosticate for a living, it's a safe bet he put a little too much stock in an 8-5 record and Roll Left.

As did everyone else.

Beating Nebraska, I presume, can turn an also-ran into a world-beater in so many people's minds. That surely happened to the Longhorns, who will now roll left out of their recliners to reach the refrigerator during this holiday season.

If the Aggies can pull off the upset against Nebraska Saturday in the Alamodome, the top 10 picks for A&M in 1998 will be out in force.

It's the nature of the media machine, which looks for a darling to primp each summer, especially in Texas, where no college football team since the Aggies of the early 1990s has flirted with the national scene.

But the manner in which the media lapsed into a blinding state with Texas and became so indifferent as to what was happening in College Station is almost as humorous as it is ridiculous.

The love-fest with John Mackovic, his brilliant fourth-down call, James Brown and Ricky Williams was something to behold at the summer media days in Dallas.

The Aggies were beyond an afterthought when writers and broadcasters picked how each division in the Big 12 would finish.

Texas Football, the former "Bible" of football in this state, chose UT and Oklahoma first and second, respectively, with the Aggies picked third.

How unanimous was Texas Football in its declaration that Texas was untouchable in the South? Well, only 26 of the 27 writers' in the magazine's annual poll picked UT to win the South. The lone exception to being burned by the Orange was Waco Tribune-Herald writer Mickey Humphrey.

"Everything has unfolded just as I thought," said Humphrey. "I just thought (the Longhorns) had too many defensive losses to overcome."

As for picking the Aggies, Humphrey, a 1979 graduate of UT, said he saw too much young talent on offense that would couple with an improving defense.

"I thought Branndon Stewart would be improved, and I just love their running backs," Humphrey said. "I didn't think Colorado would be as good, and I penciled in Kansas State as a loss because I knew they were going to be good. I saw (the Aggies) winning the rest of their games and going 10-1."

I told one A&M fan in August that I thought the Aggies were headed for a 9-2 season. Sure, the Aggies had questions all over the roster, and I'm far more often wrong in predicting outcomes than I am correct.

But for those who follow A&M closely, you could sense a team on a mission, a team that was quietly brooding about the love of the Longhorns. You could see a renewed dedication in R.C. Slocum's eyes and hear it in his voice.

He recited what he had on this team one day in spring practice. Slocum had good running backs, a good offensive line, two good tight ends and great special teams. The defense was young, but getting better.

And, even more importantly, the Aggies could have won four of the six games they lost in 1996. Yes, A&M was a .500 team, but was this team as bad as some thought?

No way. And, as Slocum has said on numerous occasions, you don't tear down a program in just one year.

"This year was a different year," A&M running back Dante Hall said. "I think they wrote us off based on what we did last year. They jumped to real bad conclusions. But new players and new coaches came in.

"We had so many turnovers last year. I knew this year, no matter how good or bad we played, if we just eliminated turnovers, our season could be a whole lot different. I don't think the media looked at that. Every team we played we could have beaten. That's why we don't listen to them."

Indeed, Hall summed up the season for the Aggies in two paragraphs. A&M held onto the ball this fall, residing in the top 10 in turnover ratio all season long.

No matter how the Aggies end up against Nebraska and in a subsequent bowl game, the team and season should be looked at as a whole. What happened to the Aggies was that they kept the turnovers to a minimum, began to improve weekly in November and settled on a red-hot Branndon Stewart at quarterback.

Last season, the Horns lost five games, including a 38-15 whitewashing at the hands of Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl. But the summer pundits became infatuated with one play against one team in the Big 12 title game.

All someone had to do - and Humphrey did - was to look hard and long at each roster, including UT's. The Longhorns lost too many good players to overwhelmingly pick them to repeat as South and Big 12 champions.

Yes, the Aggies didn't have marquee players on defense, but the offensive side of the ball was deep with young talent. It just had to come together.

And while victories over Nebraska or a bowl game would be huge for the A&M program, the success of 1997 should be seen as an ongoing, evolving process that began in the offseason.

One-game wonders and fourth-down calls build facades. What the Aggies have done in 1997 is re-lay the bricks to the foundation.

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