When Alabama’s Nick Saban casually but pointedly mentioned that “A&M bought every player” in its No. 1 rated recruiting class in May, the fury from College Station could be felt across the Texas plains. A livid Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher fired right back, assembling the local media and tossing verbal hand grenade after verbal hand grenade.
Among the highlights: “Some people think they’re God. Well, go dig into his past or ask anyone who’s coached with him, find out what he does and how he does it. Go dig into how ‘God’ did his deal. You may find out about a lot of things you don’t want to know.”
“You coach with people, like Bobby Bowden, and learn how to do things. You coach with other people and learn how not to do things. … I don’t cheat and I don’t lie. If you lied, your old man slapped you on the head. Maybe someone should have slapped him.”
“Go dig into his past or anybody that’s ever coached with him. You can find out anything you want to find out, what he does and how he does it. It’s despicable; it really is.”
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There was more, but you get the point. Texas A&M was seething at the disrespect, resenting Alabama’s perceived perch atop the college football world. There was some serious football hate going on, and anyone who was anyone was circling the Oct. 8 showdown between the two schools as one of college football’s Games of the Year.
And yet, make a few calls down to College Station or spend a little time on a few A&M message boards, and you will find a lot of support for the Crimson Tide this weekend. Saban and No. 1 Alabama are headed to Austin, and there is no gray area on where Aggies fans stand when it comes to rooting for Texas or Alabama.
“Aggies fans don’t like Alabama, but they hate Texas,” said Olin Buchanan, a writer at TexAgs.com. “With Alabama, it’s all football stuff. People don’t like them, but like the rest of the country, they respect the program.
“With Texas, it’s not just football. It’s hard to live with Texas fans, work with them, live with the insults from Texas fans. They think everyone should do what Texas wants them to do. There is so much history of backhanded deals and the feeling is Texas is superior. And not just the football program, but just superior in general.”
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Louie Belina is a long-time talk radio host at The Zone in College Station and has his finger on the pulse of Aggie Nation. He said the near-universal expectation is going to be an Alabama beatdown on Saturday.
“Aggies fans feel like, ‘We’re going to beat Alabama anyway on Oct. 8, so we might as well root for something that is going to hurt Texas,’” he said.
Texas and Texas A&M have not played since 2011 when the Aggies bolted the Big 12 for the SEC. It was a divorce celebrated by Texas A&M, which felt like it was leaving for a superior conference and would no longer be the subject of Texas’ whims. Ten years later, news broke that Texas would be joining Texas A&M in the SEC. The reaction among the Texas A&M fandom was split along generational lines, Belina said.
The younger Aggie fans didn’t really care that Texas was coming back on the schedule. They had a “we don’t need them” attitude that became cool. A decade of no Texas-Texas A&M games created a void of memories of the adrenaline rush when the two ancient rivals squared off. The older generation?
“They were like, tell me the date of the first game, because I’m getting tickets,” Belina said. “That game, people wait for it for 12 months.”
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Predictions for this weekend’s Big Noon game range from roughly 71-3 to 56-10 on Aggie message boards. One had 35-0, but that was a halftime prediction.
“A&M fans want Alabama to kill them,” said Mark Passwaters, publisher of AggieYell.com in the Rivals network. “There may be some displeasure with Alabama, but we’re talking about a century of hate. I haven’t seen anyone say, ‘Nick was mean to us, we need to root for Texas.’ There is no desire whatsoever to see Texas win.”
Texas and Texas A&M are recruiting head-to-head right now for some big-time prospects, many of whom will be in Austin on Saturday.
“Nothing would be better in that respect than to have Alabama thump them,” Passwaters said. “Texas A&M has proven it can beat Alabama. It will show Texas isn’t ready for prime time just yet.”
Yep, Texas A&M, which has its own tricky game with Appalachian State on Saturday afternoon, is throwing its full support behind its SEC West rival Alabama this weekend.
On Oct. 8, things will be different.
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