Raise your hand if you thought Texas A&M would be 7-0 and ranked #3 (by the AP and SwampSwamiSports.com) at this point of the college football season.

That’s what I thought.  Me, neither.

Recent history has shown the Texas Aggies sounding quite confident early in many seasons but then fading away down the stretch.

The brief audio clip entitled “Sad Trombone” has been appropriate when trying to describe the growing frustration about Texas A&M’s late season football struggles for several decades.

Close, but no cigar!

Texas A&M has yet to play in a national championship game since the 1998 playoff era began with the BCS and, later, the College Football Playoffs.

Aggie fans may remind you that former coach Jimbo Fisher’s 2020 team finished 9-1. 

Alas, Texas A&M’s one loss that year came against Coach Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide during the regular season in the SEC West.  Despite that exceptional record, Texas A&M did not play in either the 2020 SEC Championship game or the College Football Playoff title game.

The 2020 season was the infamous COVID year. 

College football games were played in cavernous, mostly empty stadiums.  No more than 20,000 socially-distanced fans were allowed to enter and watch most college football games in person that year.

Prior to 2020, the 1998 Texas A&M team coached by R.C. Slocum played in a non-championship BCS encounter at the Sugar Bowl after winning the Big 12 Conference title.  The #8 ranked Aggies met #3 Ohio State.

Texas A&M lost to the Buckeyes 24-14.  (Time for that “Sad Trombone” tune again!)

Texas A&M’s last national championship came in 1939!

Coach Homer Norton led the Aggies to a 14-13 Sugar Bowl win over Tulane to finish with a perfect 11-0 record.  That team’s incredible defense gave up only 31 points for the entire season!

Texas A&M University is large, loud, and very proud

In the South, we like to tell a few good-natured Texas Aggie jokes.  Here are a few clean ones!

Q: How did the Aggie die from drinking milk?

A: The cow fell on him!

Q: How do you know when an Aggie has been using the computer?

A: There is white-out on the screen!

Texas A&M has the most on-campus students (72,500) of any traditional university in the United States.

The headcount for the school’s massive Association of Former Students is as large as some developing countries. 

According to their website, more than 574,000 remain in contact with the school.  These very proud former Aggies pride themselves on helping other Aggies to find a job in the business world.

The saying of, “Once an Aggie, always an Aggie” is quite true.

For as much pride as Texas Aggies take in their school, the Texas A&M football team has not measured-up to that same level of success.

It’s not that Texas A&M has a history of fielding lousy football teams.  The Aggies have posted only five losing records in the last 41 seasons since 1983.

They have gone through seven different football coaches during the same period.

Texas A&M football fans desperately want the same thing that Alabama, Georgia, LSU, and all other SEC schools desire.  A championship ring earned by the school’s football team would set-off the biggest celebration in College Station, Texas history.

Playing in the shadow of “Texas University”

Most Texas A&M fans truly despise the state’s flagship university located in Austin.

The second verse of the school’s fight song (The Aggie War Hymn) featuring the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band says it best:

“Good-bye to Texas University

So long to the orange and the white

Good luck dear old Texas Aggies

They are the boys that show the real old fight

“The Eyes of Texas are upon you…”

That is the song they sing so well

So good-bye to Texas University

We’re gonna beat you all to

Chig-gar-roo-gar-rem

Chig-gar-roo-gar-rem

Rough! Tough! Real Stuff! Texas A&M!”

The Aggies wisely decided to exit the Big 12 Conference and join the SEC in 2012.

It was time for Texas A&M to get away from that ever-present burnt orange shadow being cast by “Texas University” (that’s what they call that other school in Austin).  The move has been generally positive for Texas A&M as the Aggies have gained more national attention as a part of the SEC since 2012.

However, the Aggies are still seeking their first SEC football title midway through their 14th season in their new league.

Nobody said it was going to be easy for Texas A&M in the SEC.  The Aggies have watched as Alabama (8 times), Georgia (3 times), LSU (2019), and Auburn (2013) took home SEC football championships.

Texas A&M fans desperately want this year’s surprising 7-0 Maroon and White football team to finally break through and earn a spot in December’s SEC Championship game in Atlanta.

Interestingly, the aforementioned rival “Texas University” (along with The University of Oklahoma) left the Big 12 and joined the SEC last year in 2024.

Worse yet for Aggies fans, the Longhorns qualified to play in the SEC title game last December (losing to Georgia) in their very first year of playing football in the league.

Ouch.

This year’s 7-0 Texas A&M team is all about hard work – without the chest-thumping

Texas A&M is all about being big.

The school has a huge campus in College Station which is the size of a small city to educate, feed, and house more than 70,000 students.  A&M students and “former students” are justifiably proud of their academics, the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, the Fightin’ Aggie Band, and much more.

Detractors of Texas A&M feel that many Aggies go a little bit too far in bragging about their school’s accomplishments.  Especially when it comes to football.

Texas A&M regularly finishes in the top five schools nationally when it comes to signing those highly rated high school football recruits.  Yet the Aggies rarely field a national championship contender in college football.

Former Texas A&M assistant coach Mike Elko returned to College Station last year and became the school’s latest head football coach.

His first head coaching job at Duke University produced two successful years.  A 9-4 record in 2022 followed by 7-5 in 2023 were impressive.  However, no one would suggest that coach Mike Elko was on the verge of taking the Duke Blue Devils to the national title game anytime soon.

Mike Elko accepted an offer to return to Texas A&M as the team’s head coach in 2024 to replace the $76 million dollar man (Jimbo Fisher). 

After Coach Fisher returned to Florida to count his contract buyout loot, it was Mike Elko who quickly burst the inflated ego of many A&M football players.

The coach immediately admonished those highly-rated former high school stars that the Texas Aggies poor record in recent years was not a fluke.  Only by working harder than the four and five star recruits playing at Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, and other SEC schools would bring the Aggies a chance to capture their first SEC football championship team. 

The Texas A&M football players bought into the coach’s message.  They have been putting in the work, too.

Coach Mike Elko’s first season at Texas A&M in 2024 produced an 8-5 record (5-3 in the SEC).

This season’s surprising 7-0 start is a testament to the quiet nature of the coach and his current football team.  He says that this year’s 2025 team has been “doing the work”. 

This year’s Aggies have stayed away from the social media chest-beating.  That is in stark contrast to previous seasons where Texas A&M’s football teams failed to back-up their “woofing” on the field with a championship trophy to prove it.  

The entire SEC (well, almost) will be rooting for LSU to beat Texas A&M on Saturday night in Baton Rouge

This Saturday night will find 7-0 Texas A&M traveling to Baton Rouge to play a very desperate team of 5-2 LSU Tigers.

LSU was humbled last Saturday by 6-1 Vanderbilt 31-24 in Nashville.  The Tigers must run the table (Texas A&M, at Alabama, Arkansas, Western Kentucky and at Oklahoma) to have a chance of reaching the 12-team College Football Playoffs.

Meanwhile, Texas A&M stands alone this week as the only unbeaten team in the league.  Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Missouri, Oklahoma, and, yes, Vanderbilt are all lurking at 6-1.

A loss by Texas A&M will create mayhem in the SEC football standings. 

It would also bring intense delight to fans of those other 6-1 SEC teams if LSU ends Texas A&M’s unbeaten season on Saturday night. 

Recent history favors the Bengal Tigers from Baton Rouge. 

LSU has beaten the Aggies six straight times (2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2023) in Tiger Stadium since A&M joined the SEC in 2012.  (Perhaps Texas A&M might want to keep that “Sad Trombone” tune on stand-by if they lose Saturday night’s game).

A win by LSU would bring some much needed happiness to Louisiana’s very demanding football fans and relieve some of the pressure being felt by Coach Brian Kelly and his Tigers this week. 

A road trip to Tuscaloosa to face Alabama is still looming for LSU in two weeks.

First, LSU must win on Saturday night to stay alive in the SEC race and, perhaps, to save their coach’s job.

Texas A&M must win on Saturday night to continue its quest to win the school’s first SEC football title since joining the conference 14 years ago.  The Aggies have difficult road games remaining at Missouri (6-1) and arch rival Texas (5-2).  

This week’s game is filled with drama and promises to be special.  Kickoff in Tiger Stadium is Saturday night at 6:30PM.  The game will be nationally televised by ABC.  

The National Weather Service in Baton Rouge is predicting a 60% chance of rain throughout the game on Saturday night.

A chance of rain…in Tiger Stadium…on a Saturday night??

Recently retired LSU public address announcer Dan Borne’ would have one word to say about that.  “NEVER!”*

*But, just in case, the 103,000 fans in attendance might want to consider bringing a yellow poncho and something like a plastic yard waste bag to sit on at the game. 

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