“Money CAN’T BUY ME LOVE” or a winning team 

Horns, Ags Jockey For SEC Position 

by Larry Carlson  ( lc13@txstate.edu )

Like their big brother rivals, the Aggies are weary of winning big in recruiting but never seeing it translate into actually winning big.  The programs from Austin and College Station are prototypes for “Money can’t buy me love.” 

Both schools have been listed as preseason “Programs under pressure, along with Florida, Nebraska, and Miami.  Deep pockets for facilities and NIL have not produced the desired results on Saturdays.

Well, the SEC powers that be have finally decided.  Perhaps soothed by the warm Gulf waters and sugary beaches at Destin, FL, they settled on eight conference games for the expanded conference.

This took just a little less time than the French & Indian War (aka The Seven Years War).  The late, great Pirate/Coach Mike Leach told reporters last year that if the SEC let him figure out the scheduling he could “get it done before lunch.”

No, the Horns and Ags still won’t duke it out this fall.  But both teams will make a case for what the SEC vibe in the Lone Star State will feel like come 2024.  So, in some ways, Texas is, as they say in the restaurant biz, making a “soft opening” for the big stage when September arrives.

Yes, Texas makes its first visit to Tuscaloosa in week two.  And the Bryce Young-less Crimson Tide will not yet be in midseason form.  Not that the Longhorns will be.  Still, it’s set up as a gigantic opportunity for UT..

A shot at making an impression.  ESPN’s Gameday is bound to be there.

The Steers have much to prove.  It is imperative that the program emerges from a thirteen-year dormant state, deep in the woods.  Anything less than a Big XII title should be unacceptable to Longhorn Nation.

Last fall the Aggies endured a five-game losing streak and led pitiful UMass just 10-3, midway through the third quarter before getting a 20-3 slumpbuster W, that had to come with an asterisk.  A&M then put things together and closed out by slapping a good LSU team that simply did not show up as it awaited the SEC title game against Georgia.

But it was a losing season, something the fans with maroon pick-ups thought they were immune to, having hired Jimbo Fisher in 2017.  Thus far, Jimbo is merely the rich man’s version of Coach Kevin Sumlin.

When the Cadets lost to App State last September, SEC media guru Paul Finebaum tweeted this:”I’m not here to make fun of Jimbo Fisher.  His record does that already.” And that was three weeks before the five-game losing skid began in Starkville.

Texas fans can giggle about the Ags’ 2022 fortunes but only at their own peril.  Just one year earlier, UT bottomed out with an unimaginable six-game string of ugly defeats.  Steve Sarkisian has been only a modestly winning head coach at Washington and USC, and now stands at 13-12 in Austin.

All that brings us back to summer 2023, with optimism blooming everywhere, every team unbeaten.

Texas lost Bijan, Roschon, Overshown, and Gary Patterson.  But the roster seemingly is stocked with more gold than Fort Knox.  Athlon magazine’s football preview lists UT as one of the nation’s top ten in quarterbacks, receivers, the O-line, the D-line, and D-backs.  Sounds more like an assessment of the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Aggies certainly do not expect a repeat of last season’s sea of ineptitude.  Faith in Jimbo didn’t drown in ’22, but it decayed and shriveled.  A&M fans are eager to see Fisher on the sidelines without what were often referred to as play cards larger than Waffle House menus.  And the Ags were undoubtedly scattered, covered, smothered and chunked in the cellar of the SEC West.

Enter the roguish Bobby Petrino, supposedly the panacea for A&M football. 

Various experts think he’ll bring the magic.  Others say he won’t.  And many believe Jimbo won’t go quietly on calling plays.

On the other side of the ball, last year’s Ags were stellar against the pass and could be again.

The catch, though, was that the Aggies stunk it up against the run.  They made even heretofore weak running games get well, at least for a day.  There’s no shortage of talent there on the Brazos, but like so many touted UT rosters for more than a decade, can the A&M potential be realized?

Scanning the respective schedules for the Horns and Ags, Texas will be favored against every foe not named Bama.  What UT has to do is avoid playing down to the mediocre opponents in its conference. The Aggies gauntlet through an eastward jungle appears much more dangerous.  Yeah, Miami hasn’t yet proven anything and Auburn and Mississippi State will be weaker.  But besides hosting Alabama and South Carolina, the Ags must travel to Tennessee and LSU.  And to Ole Miss.  Perhaps Lane Kiffin can torment A&M for a third straight time.  Arkansas, with quarterback KJ Jefferson, is due for some luck against the Aggies. 

On paper, where games are never played, it would appear that the Longhorns are poised to break out and win ten or eleven.  They should.

The Aggies?  Unless Petrino pans out as the biggest thing in College Station since Jorvorskie Lane chowing at the Dixie Chicken, and unless that run defense vastly improves, it’s hard to picture nine wins.

For a dozen years, UT backers could quickly silence their Aggie acquaintances with just two words.

Justin. Tucker.

But the resumption of the old rivalry inches closer. And with it, great anticipation on both sides.

So does Texas get the flying start to the SEC this autumn while Jimbo amps up his own hot seat?

Only one thing is sure.

The Longhorns better enjoy this last season in the Big XII.  

It’s about to mean more. SEC, baby.

                  The History of the Aggie and Longhorns football rivalry is at

        https://www.texaslsn.org/texas-a-m-tradition-with-comments-from-larry-carlson