First, I would like to restate what I said before about historians and how they do research, “If you weren’t there I don’t care what you think” I would also like to add another one from Benjamin Franklin, “There is nothing new under the sun.” That has to do with a concept called “cause and effect.” You use history to predict the future. Take feminism. You look in the past and see where it was practiced before and use that to predict how it will affect us today. How about multiculturalism? You might want to read Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”
The problem with figuring out what Jimbo is doing today is that most of you can’t remember when this happened at A&M in the past. To do that you have to go back to 1954 and 1972. I was there for both and a couple of stories will demonstrate how even the most devoted fans can get the wrong answer.
It’s the summer of 1954 and I’m about to enter Kindergarten. My Dad, who went to A&M in the 1930s is reading the morning paper. We’ve just hired a new football coach and the article he’s reading is a preview of the Aggie football team and the upcoming season and he’s pissed.
My Mom comes into the living room and asks him, “What’s wrong?” He throws the paper on the floor and begins to rage, “This clown has destroyed our football team! A month ago we had over a hundred players and not we’re down to 28. Who hired this moron.”
Well, we all know today that those 28 players were the famed Junction Boys and the moron was Bear Bryant. It’s a process and new coaches want to assemble their team as soon as possible. Bryant always said he regretted Junction but he was lying. He wanted to get rid of the old team and build his own. Remember Kenneth Hall? He was the Sugarland Express, statistically the greatest running back in Texas High School history and Bryant ran him off at Junction. Really stupid right. Well, just replaced him the next year with John David Crow.
Now let’s flash forward to 1972 and I’m sitting in the stands at Kyle Field watching my Aggies get their butts kicked. I turn to my date and say, “Do you realize that we just fired a coach that beat Bear Bryant in the Cotton Bowl a few years ago. We had one of the best defenses in the SWC last year and this new idiot has benched all of them and put in a bunch of freshmen. Look at the scoreboard. How can our alumni be this stupid.”
Well, today we know that those freshmen were planting a seed that would someday become the famed Wrecking Crew defense and the names Tank Marshall, Ed Simonini, Garth Tenapel, and Pat Thomas would become some of the greatest Aggie players of all time. Just two years later they were the No. 1 defense in the nation and three years later would play for the national championship (sadly, we lost to Arkansas). Oh, that that idiot coach we hired was Emory Bellard. He also had brought a LB coach with him named R. C. Slocum.
This is a process and it’s very difficult to predict what’s going to happened unless you forget the past and look to the future. The key to understanding what going to happen next isn’t to look at our current roster. It’s looking at the offers and signings that our new coach is making.
What I see is the exact opposite of what we’ve had over the last five years. We’re recruiting big backs for a run heavy offense. We might even see something we haven’t seen in years: a huddle. Fisher’s offense is going to run the ball 90 percent of the time next year, bleed the clock and keep our defense off the field and no more “Hurry Up and Punt.”
Say goodbye to Rock music at practice. Say goodbye to an exhausted defense in the third quarter, say goodbye to an offense that turns 3rd and one into 4th and three, and say goodbye to the “Hurry up and Punt” offense.
A new Aggie football team is coming to town this summer and they’re bringing victory with them. Will it happen overnight? Well, Bryant was 1-9 his first year and Bellard was 3-8. It’s a process not a quick fix.
The problem with figuring out what Jimbo is doing today is that most of you can’t remember when this happened at A&M in the past. To do that you have to go back to 1954 and 1972. I was there for both and a couple of stories will demonstrate how even the most devoted fans can get the wrong answer.
It’s the summer of 1954 and I’m about to enter Kindergarten. My Dad, who went to A&M in the 1930s is reading the morning paper. We’ve just hired a new football coach and the article he’s reading is a preview of the Aggie football team and the upcoming season and he’s pissed.
My Mom comes into the living room and asks him, “What’s wrong?” He throws the paper on the floor and begins to rage, “This clown has destroyed our football team! A month ago we had over a hundred players and not we’re down to 28. Who hired this moron.”
Well, we all know today that those 28 players were the famed Junction Boys and the moron was Bear Bryant. It’s a process and new coaches want to assemble their team as soon as possible. Bryant always said he regretted Junction but he was lying. He wanted to get rid of the old team and build his own. Remember Kenneth Hall? He was the Sugarland Express, statistically the greatest running back in Texas High School history and Bryant ran him off at Junction. Really stupid right. Well, just replaced him the next year with John David Crow.
Now let’s flash forward to 1972 and I’m sitting in the stands at Kyle Field watching my Aggies get their butts kicked. I turn to my date and say, “Do you realize that we just fired a coach that beat Bear Bryant in the Cotton Bowl a few years ago. We had one of the best defenses in the SWC last year and this new idiot has benched all of them and put in a bunch of freshmen. Look at the scoreboard. How can our alumni be this stupid.”
Well, today we know that those freshmen were planting a seed that would someday become the famed Wrecking Crew defense and the names Tank Marshall, Ed Simonini, Garth Tenapel, and Pat Thomas would become some of the greatest Aggie players of all time. Just two years later they were the No. 1 defense in the nation and three years later would play for the national championship (sadly, we lost to Arkansas). Oh, that that idiot coach we hired was Emory Bellard. He also had brought a LB coach with him named R. C. Slocum.
This is a process and it’s very difficult to predict what’s going to happened unless you forget the past and look to the future. The key to understanding what going to happen next isn’t to look at our current roster. It’s looking at the offers and signings that our new coach is making.
What I see is the exact opposite of what we’ve had over the last five years. We’re recruiting big backs for a run heavy offense. We might even see something we haven’t seen in years: a huddle. Fisher’s offense is going to run the ball 90 percent of the time next year, bleed the clock and keep our defense off the field and no more “Hurry Up and Punt.”
Say goodbye to Rock music at practice. Say goodbye to an exhausted defense in the third quarter, say goodbye to an offense that turns 3rd and one into 4th and three, and say goodbye to the “Hurry up and Punt” offense.
A new Aggie football team is coming to town this summer and they’re bringing victory with them. Will it happen overnight? Well, Bryant was 1-9 his first year and Bellard was 3-8. It’s a process not a quick fix.
