Aggies finish with same record as UF.

33-20 has a lot to do with that.
Fortunately they got us in the beginning of the year, same goes for the hericanes.

33-20, same score we beat UT and senior peyton manning in 1997.

 

Everything that could go wrong in our game with them, pretty much did. When we got that Butt targeting call I knew it wasn’t going to be our day.

 

Looks like I'm not alone. Yes, we cannot relive the past, but we did in fact get better... and that is my point.


Mike Elko thinks Texas A&M was "lucky" against Florida Football earlier this year

Mike Elko thinks Texas A&M was "lucky" against Florida Football earlier this year

 

Elko would have been better off saying "fortunate." But it wasn't just a matter of Florida getting better. It was also the Aggies getting worse. They also had injuries late in the season.

 

UF had as many injuries as any team I can recall in secondary....it's crazy when you look at the totals of front line guys
QB...Mertz missed most of the year and Lagway was injured last half
RB....Webb missed bulk of the year and Montrell missed signigficant time
OL....George, Manuel,Kearney all missed significant time
WR...Wilson and Jackson missed most of season, Badger missed some time
S...Castell and Thornton both missed time, Asa basically missed the season
CB....Jakeem basically missed the year, Marshall missed half the year, Moore missed huge part of year, Grimsley missed time, Cormani missed time late in year, Gates went down last quarter of year
LB.....Pup missed large portion of season
DL....Lyons missed year, Jackson and Banks missed time last half of year, Slackman missed significant time
Even Underwood missed a couple of games

Thats just off the top of my head and not counting routine dinged up stuff

 

It's a perfect example of 2 teams finishing with the same record but doing it in opposite directions. A&M started out fast then sputtered late in the season where we sputtered early in the season but finished 4-0. Usually the A&M season was ours. Glad to see finally we got better as the season progressed.

 

Big money Asa Turner played a few snaps in the Miami game before he missed the rest of the season.

 

Yes....why I said he basically missed the season

 

Ah I missed that. Was looking for Turner and missed Asa.

 

This is evidence of depth. Our 2s and 3s stepped up and performed well, makes me smile about the coming season. We lost a bit to graduation and to the NFL, but by and large we have a lot of contributors coming back and we have also added some nice pieces from the portal and from high school.

 

It has a lot to do with history. In the late 70's and 80's college football grew exponentially in popularity. During that time, most of the talking heads and announcers thought the sun rose and set with the likes of the Big 10 power, ND and USC. There was a perception that the south was just a bunch of rednecks that didn't play good football. Other than Miami (which was widely hated) the south didn't start producing consistent challengers to those northern schools and USC until the SEC had the first championship game and FSU rose to power in the ACC. Those same powers didn't like it and with the SEC going to divisions created an us against them metality that people translate as "conference pride" and the SEC! SEC! SEC! chants began.

And here we are today with many different teams in the SEC winning a natty while those other conferences still only produce a natty with those same teams. (OSU, USC and MIch.)

 

I can agree with this. But we did get much better... and we completely changed our defense for the better.

What makes me wonder is, why did it take so long (half the season) to figure it out.

I thought our defense figured it out by the end of the 2023 season, only to lay an egg against Miami and then A&M bring our record to 1-2 after playing just 3 games.

We cannot come out in September 2025 and forget how to play defense for half the freaking season, again, like we did at the beginning of the 2024 season.

The way we finished this year should be the starting point (schematically) where are start the 2025 season... No more wasting half the year TO FIGURE IT OUT.

 

I give a lot of credit to the coaches, especially Harris.

 

TAMMY is not our rival, merely an in-conference foe.

 

Some of this is correct, but in the 60's and 70's Alabama won 5 National championships. Perhaps in that era the sporting press saw the SEC as similar to the BIG which then consisted of the Big 2, little 8. Then UGa won one in 1980, Auburn got screwed out of one in 1983 because UM squeaked by the "Best team in College Football History" in a home field bowl game. Every Gator knows that UF got screwed out of a natty in 1984 (rules for thee, but not for me).
Then there was a long period from 1984 to 1992 where the SEC wasn't at its best. By the mid to late 90's and ever since, the SEC has been dominant in winning natties and playing innovative football (thank you Steve Spurrier).

Unfortunately at the same time the SEC began winning titles by the bushel load, the NCAA decided to turn a blind eye to blatant cheating (the Scam Newton scandal kicked off this era) by the "power schools." I understand conference pride back when competition was "sort of" level, but I would never root for an Alabama or Georgia team that was buying talent by the truckload and daring the NCAA to look sideways at them.

 

Yes. I was using rival loosely - as in, a team that we play regularly.

 

Texas A&M is my new 2nd least-like team SEC team behind only UGa.

 

A

…..a..it is called perspective. It is an antidote for for uninformed rock hard opinions.
THANKS FOR YOUR TIMELY INJECTION

 

Root against rivals to your hearts content. I just don't understand wanting the whole of the SEC to lose.

I can see it now, UF is team 13 that gets left behind for a ACC or Big 12 team and all the same people that wanted the SEC to fail lose their minds.