The Blue Board

your saying A&M had a better team last year? what kind of made up shit are you eating?
A&M could not finish a game to save their lives last year. They are def better this year than last year. and its laughable some of you guys think A&M would be the 3rd or 4th best team in the Big12.

The top 2 or 3 teams that play in the NC games are very good but as a overall conf. they suck and are Very weak at the bottom. As it turned out A&M is a upgrade for their conf. because in the Big 12 you have to have a good QB, which the SEC Never has.

This sums it up very well.

Texas A&M's competitiveness in the SEC so far confirms what many of us had already suspected: The Aggies grossly underperformed in the Big 12 relative to their talent level under Mike Sherman. Granted, a first-year player, Johnny Football, has been the catalyst for their success, but lest we forget, A&M had a first-round draft pick (admittedly a questionable one) at quarterback last year in Ryan Tannehill. And Johnny Football isn't doing this alone. He plays behind a pair of projected first-round tackles (Luke Joeckel and Jake Matthews). He throws to an accomplished veteran receiver (Ryan Swope). The defense is led by a projected first-round defensive end (Damontre Moore). Yet these same guys combined to go 4-5 in the Big 12 last season.

To be clear, I'm not saying the Aggies should have performed better because the Big 12 is an easier league. On the contrary, you could make a case as to why either conference is tougher. In the SEC, A&M has had to face three top-10 teams (Florida, LSU and Alabama), whereas in the Big 12 it would've faced one such squad (Kansas State) and a second that's close behind (Oklahoma). On the flip side, given the SEC's unbalanced schedules, it's possible to play half your conference games against complete deadweights (Auburn, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky), where with the Big 12's depth and round-robin format, there's only get one true gimme (Kansas). Even 5-5 Iowa State and 4-5 Baylor are no pushovers.

So to answer the last part of Dave's question, Kevin Sumlin's Aggies would probably be about where they currently are (8-2) in either conference. On the one hand, Johnny Football would not have faced defenses in the Big 12 of the caliber of Florida and LSU's, both of which neutralized him in the second half. On the other, A&M's pass defense is shaky (79th nationally), as you may recall from the Louisiana Tech game, and it's faced just two top-40 passers in SEC play, Alabama's AJ McCarron and Arkansas' Tyler Wilson. In the Big 12 this season, it would've faced five of the top 20 (Kansas State's Collin Klein, Texas' David Ash, Texas Tech's Seth Doege, West Virginia's Geno Smith and Baylor's Nick Florence).

It's possible Johnny Football would have even gaudier stats in the Big 12, but his team would likely have the same record. The difference is, those results would've come with scores closer to 54-49 than 24-19.

Looking at last year vs. this year- I dont think you can argue that having a new HC and QB who is just a gamer, has boosted the confidence of this team. The talent isnt any better. Last year, we had a HC who's older and very business like (a career pro football guy) and couldnt motivate young men on a consistent basis. I think we had a huge confidence problem last year after we blew a couple big leads to OSU and Ark early in the year and it haunted us all year. I think Sumlin has erased some of that and Manziel's attitude and confidence is pretty obvious if you watched him in any of the big games this year.

As far as our current success in the SEC vs poor success in the Big 12- I think it's as simple as us matching up better on defense in the SEC than we did in the Big 12. We are pretty good against the run (and were in the Big 12 the last couple of years) and not very good against the pass. PERIOD. I think that's why we gave up 57 points to La Tech who passes the ball all over the place but against teams like Florida, Bama and LSU, who run the ball first, we do much better. Our defense held Bama to 3.6yds per carry which is about half their season avg. BUT they almost beat us passing it in the 4th Quarter and actually passed the ball for more yards than we did in the game on Saturday.

I think it's pretty obvious that our biggest team weakness is our secondary right now and that will get you in trouble when you play a really good passing team, like you see in the Big 12 on a regular basis.

Looking at the bowl projections, I'd MUCH rather play a team like Notre Dame than I would OU, even though ND beat OU in Norman. I think we match up better. OU might give us quite a bit more trouble because they can pass the ball.

I don't think you will get any argument here.