TJ Chapman
Lead Columnist, Editor
Photo credit: Ethan Mito & Texas A&M Athletics
If you believe the rumors, the Texas A&M Aggies have been a major player in college football’s unspoken “pay for play” of years gone by. According to the ESPN 30 For 30 series about SMU titled The Pony Excess, Eric Dickerson’s Pontiac Trans Am was originally purchased by Texas A&M boosters. That was in 1979, so in a way, you have a dated history for how long this has been going on in College Station, TX.
I’m not here to judge programs or players for being paid before it was legal to do so, everyone did it, and it should have been legal then. What I am here to judge, though, is why the Texas A&M faithful, and a lot of media, feel the Aggies are a top college football program.
In looking at the last 30 years, Texas A&M has had only two double-digit win seasons, 1998 and 2012. In that same time, the number of seasons the Aggies have had fewer than three losses in a single season is also two. With the amount of publicity and preseason accolades a program like A&M gets, you would think they would have a more winning tradition.
Texas A&M claims three National Championships, 1919, 1927 and 1939. That’s right, it has been 86 years since Texas A&M has won a natty. Even more difficult to understand is that the Aggies have a total of 18 conference championships. 17 of those were won in the now non-existent Southwest Conference. The lone Big 12 conference championship was won in 1998.
They are similar to the Toronto Maple Leafs, whose team slogan should be “We’ll Get Em Next Season”. Or like Chicago Cubs fans prior to 2016, who waited a mind blowing 108 years to see their team win a championship.
Johnny Manziel won the Heisman Trophy in Texas A&M’s first season as a member of the Southeastern Conference, in 2012. He led the Aggies to an 11-2 record and Cotton Bowl victory over former Big 12 foe Oklahoma.
The only other season of significant success for the Aggies was the 2020 Covid-shortened season. A&M went 9-1 that year and finished ranked No. 4 in the country. With the oil money that flows through the A&M program, and the access to Texas high school football recruits, how can it be possible that Texas A&M has been so mediocre for so long?
Legendary Aggies head coach RC Slocum manned the A&M sidelines from 1989-2002. In his tenure Slocum went 123-47-2, including a 3-8 bowl record. He may be the main reason for the hope that Aggie fans annually display. From 1991-1994 the Aggies had an amazing 28-0-1 conference record as members of the SWC.
However, once the SWC merged with the Big 8 Conference to form the Big 12 Conference, Slocum’s teams found hard times. In his seven seasons in the Big 12, Slocum’s Aggies went 37-25 in conference play. A large part of that change in record would be the addition of playing then national powers Oklahoma and Nebraska on a regular basis. Slocum was 4-3 against Oklahoma and 1-3 against Nebraska.
A&M’s biggest rival Texas also joined the Big 12 and 1998 was when Texas hired legendary head coach Mack Brown. Slocum was 2-5 against the Longhorns as members of the Big 12. A hidden nugget for Slocum’s time in the Big 12 is that he was 1-6 against Texas Tech, a program not looked at as highly as Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.
The next nine years of Texas A&M football were coached by Dennis Franchione (2003-2007) and Mike Sherman (2008-2011). Franchione’s record with the Aggies was 32-28 with a bowl record of 0-2. Sherman was 25-25 at Texas A&M, sharing the same 0-2 bowl record. Both coaches had an interim coach for the A&M bowl teams that followed their final seasons in College Station, TX.
A move to the Southeastern Conference came in 2012 along with hope from new head coach Kevin Sumlin. The Aggies burst on the scene in their new conference, finishing 11-2 with that Cotton Bowl win over Oklahoma and Manziel’s Heisman Trophy win.
However, Sumlin would only last six seasons with Texas A&M, going 40-24 over the next five seasons to finish 51-26, 3-2 in bowl games. Sumlin won early with A&M but could not duplicate the 2012 results. A&M boosters got tired of the product on the field and decided to go all in with Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher.
When A&M hired Fisher away from Florida State it was four years removed from the Seminoles winning the National Championship after the 2013 season. There were circumstances at Florida State that caused Fisher to want to leave but the big oil money coming from College Station was a major force in Jimbo jumping ship.
Fisher’s original contract with A&M in 2018 was for 10 years at $75 million, an average annual value of $7.5 million. In Fisher’s first two seasons at A&M, the Aggies were recruiting well, but not elite. That changed in 2019 when Fisher landed a top five class according to both 247Sports and On3 Sports.
For the remainder of his time at A&M, Fisher’s recruiting classes finished in the top ten every year except his last. The crown jewel of his recruiting classes came in 2022 when A&M was ranked No. 1 by both recruiting sites. That class came after A&M renewed Jimbo’s contract in September of 2021, signing him to an unprecedented 10-year, $95 million, fully guaranteed contract.
That recruiting class also led to the highly publicized, and ridiculously overblown, spat between Jimbo and then Alabama head coach Nick Saban. While speaking with Bama boosters, Saban made the comment that A&M bought a recruiting class.
Most media outlets stopped the tape at that point and Fisher was, understandably, angered. When the tape continued to roll, Saban then said that what A&M did was perfectly legal and was wondering why Bama boosters weren’t doing the same thing.
Apparently even buying the No. 1 recruiting class did not lead to results as Texas A&M went 5-7 in 2022. Whispers of Jimbo’s ineffective coaching methods spread and there were rumors of a buyout of his contract. Fisher hired former Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino to run the offense in 2023 but that only led to a 7-6 record and the eventual firing of Fisher.
Reeling from having to pay Fisher his annual salary due to the guarantee in his contract, A&M was not able to make a splash hire this time around. The Aggies hired Mike Elko from Duke. Elko does not have the flash and flare of Fisher or former A&M head coach Jackie Sherrill. While Elko was the defensive coordinator for the Aggies from 2018-2021, he’s not quite a “Texas guy”. Elko’s first season in College Station was successful at 8-5, but those are not the results expected with a roster of players making over $3 million in NIL money.
The 2025 Aggies have one thing that has been constant with the A&M faithful over the past three decades, hope. Sophomore quarterback Marcel Reed will be QB1 after a solid freshman season. A&M returns their top five rushers from last season, including senior running back Le’Veon Moss.
The defense has a lot of production returning, including the top six tacklers from 2024. The linebackers and secondary are some of the best in the country. But that is what you would expect from a payroll like A&M’s. The offensive side of the ball needs to catch up with the defense if the Aggies are ever going to legitimately challenge for a CFP spot.
Whether during legal times or the not so legal times, no matter how much money A&M has spent on their roster or their coaching staff the results have been the same. I don’t see 2025 being any different, expect at least three losses and a very disappointed Texas A&M fan base.
