Not the current team. No. I have a feeling they'll be waiting a long time in College Station for "better" on that front, but the Aggies' list of PAST accomplishments has blossomed in their time away from the Big 12.
Those of us who have been close to the Ags for a while now are quite familiar with their lone national championship. It came in 1939 and TAMU is quite proud of it... as they should be. The Aggies were ranked #1 by more polls and outlets than any other team that year. A reminder of that glory adorns the wall outside the stadium in big, bold letters along with their conference titles. Here's a look:
Tomorrow the Aggies will play their first game in the SEC and they'll do so as 3-time national champions. This year's "wall of fame" looks a little different, doesn't it?
How can this be? Well, in the early years there wasn't a central publication to declare a national championship. In 1919 Harvard, Illinois, Notre Dame and A&M were all ranked #1 at the end of the year depending on where you looked, but Harvard and Illinois had the most love and conventional wisdom shares the title between those two schools. Notre Dame, for all of their history and love for winning, does NOT claim a title for 1919. The Aggies do. Now.
In 1927 the Aggies didn't receive a national title nod from ANY publication, but they're claiming it anyway. You see, the Sagarin ratings have them on top. Never mind that Jeff Sagarin wasn't even BORN yet. He went back and did his statistical research on that year and determined that Texas A&M was the best team. This is like Tom Cruise declaring himself an Oscar winner because Roger Ebert went back and watched and thought Cruise was really good in Jerry Maguire.
But the Aggies are having a little bit of a problem with street cred right now in their new conference, so what the hell? Put it on the wall.
It doesn't end there. The Aggies fired up the old flux capacitor and won two more Big 12 titles over the summer, as well! Whoop!
Take 1997 for example. The Ags won the Big 12's south division and went to the Big 12 Championship Game against Nebraska and it was a blowout! Oh wait. The Aggies were the ones blown out. They lost 54-15 in the conference title game, but they're etching 1997 into the wall anyway. I guess for the division part? Hard to say.
In 2010 it's even worse. A&M ended the season in a 3-way tie for the south division. They finished 3rd in that 3-way tiebreaker and didn't even GO to the conference title game. Who cares? Throw it up there!
I hoped that if anything would come out of this move to the SEC it would be that finally the Aggies would be able to shake the giant inferiority complex that they had within their state. Apparently, it's gotten even worse.
Texas A&M is literally re-writing history just so they'll look (at least a LITTLE bit more) like they belong in college football's premiere conference.
This would be funny if it weren't so sad... and it would be nice fodder for ribbing our neighbors here in our great state if it weren't so embarrassing for our great state.
Come on, Aggies. You talk so much about tradition and honor. Manufacturing tradition is hardly honorable. Quit worrying so much about history and concentrate on MAKING history.
That's what TRUE champions do.
How predictable is this? Really. Actually if you look, about half of Alabama's titles are on shaky ground (Texas beat them in a bowl game one year, claimed with a loss to an undefeated team in another), they just didn't wait so long to claim them. In fairness, Texas's 1970 title is questionable.
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