The Texas A&M football team opens fall camp Monday with plenty of optimism, and it's not just the usual preseason hype.
The Aggies are picked to finish third in the Big 12 South. The program hasn't been this close to Oklahoma and Texas in what seems like a decade, though it was only four years ago.
That's when A&M was poised to return to a spot among the nation's elite during the 2006 season after shaking off back-to-back one-point home losses to Oklahoma and Nebraska with a smash-mouth 12-7 victory at Texas. That assured the Aggies of a nine-win season, the program's first since its 1998 Big 12 championship campaign.
It turned out to be only a month of euphoria. A&M didn't show up against California in the Holiday Bowl, and there have been more rough times than good ones since.
The last was a 44-20 loss to Georgia in last year's Independence Bowl that continued some ugly trends -- it clinched A&M's fourth losing season in the last seven years and the Aggies' eighth bowl loss in nine games.
Yet, that loss in Shreveport seems like so long ago. The Aggies shrewdly have put recent ugliness behind them, replacing it with a high level of optimism.
It started with head coach Mike Sherman bringing in five new assistants. Sherman had to revamp his staff after going 10-15 in his first two seasons. It wasn't just the losing record. What really had fans restless were the blowout losses with a defense that often seemed overmatched and special teams play that was sporadic at best.
To Sherman's credit, he recognized the shortcomings of his first collegiate staff and made solid hires. He was praised for getting Air Force defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter, a rising star in the game, and for bringing back Aggie icon Dat Nguyen as his inside linebackers coach. Yet it was just as important that he replace former defensive coordinator Joe Kines and special teams coach Kirk Doll. They had fallen too far from the fans' grace to save.
An easier sell than the new assistants is the anticipation of great seasons by quarterback Jerrod Johnson and outside linebacker Von Miller. It's not just that these players are among the country's best at their positions -- each was voted the Big 12's preseason player of the year on their side of the ball. They are great team leaders, the poster boys of the program right now. Johnson and Miller are the type of players who have helped Oklahoma and Texas monopolize the Big 12 South for the last decade and hog the national spotlight. Johnson and Miller give the Aggies a chance to be big winners on and off the field.
Yet A&M's biggest victory in the offseason came during the conference realignment talk. The Aggies were as big a player on the national scene as OU and UT. Together they saved the Big 12, and everyone knew it. Heck, five of the league's schools -- Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri -- said they'd gladly give a portion of their revenue money to UT, OU and A&M to keep the conference intact. The Aggies also loved it when Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive visited College Station supposedly with an invitation in hand.
Aggies again were beaming when A&M president R. Bowen Loftin made the Big 12 confirm that the school will get its $20 million a year in the revamped league.
Nothing says you are a big-time player like big-time cash and national attention. But even $20 million won't be of much value if Sherman can't win enough to make the program worth the same on the field as OU and UT.
That's the challenge facing this year's team. The Aggies are closer than ever to the Longhorns and Sooners, but now they have to move forward between the lines. Eventually, Sherman has to beat those programs, sooner rather than later, but he also has to consistently post 10-win seasons like they have. It's not enough to just beat Texas, which former head coach Dennis Franchione found out. The A&M program has to match Texas and Oklahoma in success.
A&M has been picked third in the South, but it's a distant third. Texas is ranked third in the USA Today Coaches' Top 25 poll with 1,240 points. OU is eighth with 1,035 points. A&M earned three points for 46th. In public perception, the Aggies are much closer to the 66 schools that didn't even get a vote than they are to UT and OU.
So, while Aggie fans have visions of a 10-3 season, and well they should, a realistic goal is, say, 8-5, which would narrow the gap on Texas and Oklahoma in the process. There's no doubt A&M could beat OU at Kyle Field on Nov. 6 or win at Texas on Thanksgiving, but it's more important that the Aggies beat the teams they are supposed to beat, which hasn't always happened in recent years.
The Aggies need to beat those other teams, such as Oklahoma State, Missouri and Texas Tech, who received more points in the coaches' poll. That has a chance to happen this year, which is certainly a step in the right direction.
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