Episode Transcript
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Welcome man. Everyone is the arkexperience, I m ARKI Sha, this
is the experience. I wanted tobegin this Center podcast by discussing the news
out of College Station that Jimbo,the coolest named guy in all of college
football, the head coach of theA and m Aggies, has decided to
(00:33):
stay and taking his name at aconsideration, I guess for anything, because
the rumor was rampant that he mightbe interested in LSU, or even more
specifically, LSU might be interested inhim, and I was interested in what
in the world Texas A and Mis specifically because I don't think I really
(01:00):
no. And when I talk aboutthat into a second of first talk about
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Okay, So Texas saying him isthis big, splashy, sexy,
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cool job. It's Texas all money, it is fun, right, It's
Texas without being Texas. It's justweird enough to be an sec school.
It got away from Texas now itdoesn't. But I still got all of
this money, all of these facilitiesthat are glistening, and all of this
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pump swagger prestige without the actual meritbehind it. And that's the thing that's
always so I find so interesting aboutTexas A and M. Because let's let's
give Texas SAY and M a littlebit of credit here. It's not because
that they are gonna keep Jimbo Fisher. I mean, who wouldn't Jimbo Fisher
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just signed a massive deal a coupleof seasons ago to basically get all kinds
of junk money for doing whatever youwant. I mean, he's gonna try
for a little bit at least,but they have to any who outside of
that, Texas A and him has, at least with dollars, made that
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commitment to the sport. But whathave we ever seen from them? And
let's just since we're all victims ofrecent history, let's just think about since
they've been in the Southeastern Conference,They've had a couple of really nice seasons.
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They have beaten the number one rankedteam a couple of times happened to
be the same team, but ithappened. Yet in each one of those
seasons, there has been tremendous disappointmentoutside of those individual games. As Johnny
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Manziel did come in with a Heismanseason, there was a lot of swagger
and pump in circumstance or pump pompnot pump pump a circumstance. Oh,
a lot of pomp a circumstance aroundthat. And that's good. Even though
he was returning, they didn't havenearly as good of a season in the
next year. And that's listen,that's life, right. But the rest
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of those living life aren't paying sevenand a half million dollars for the coach.
So what is Texas A and M. Should Texas A and M be
the team that's got quote the dumbesthuman being on God's earth to recruit all
these guys A and M just sogo over there to coach Ellis Hue and
play against him. No, shouldTexas A and M b at the upper
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echelon of the Southeastern Conference when theyreally legitimately since they've been here and not
been what is the fair home orTexas SAY and M. Because I'll tell
you I don't know. I don'tknow Texas A and M fits the Southeastern
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Conference mold when it comes to dollars. When it comes to some of the
quirky traditions that they have, I'mnot sure if they fit in any sort
of winning, prestige kind of fashion. But that doesn't always matters about bringing
in market share and eyeballs for TVand being the team in the state at
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the time. So what is Texassay and them? You know, if
asked a lot of friends of this, a lot of those who are in
the media before, and we've beenon these discussions over and over again about
what would Texas, A and Mbe happy with? Because what happens is
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teams like Alabama and Clemson in Ohiostate, like they sort of move the
goal post for what someone should behappy with. And trust me, social
media doesn't help the echoing of thepoor man sentiments either. But we're literally
just coming off a weekend where Kansasbe Texas and Kansas fans are through the
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roof. I mean, it's somethingthey didn't expect. It's a big win
over a big school. Should theybe happy with that? I don't know.
But if you're, let's say,an Alabama fan, could you ever
consider yourself being happy with that?And that's the bad thing. Like if
you're if you're an Alabama fan listeningto this, whether you are in sort
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of the younger generation of Alabama fansor the or the older generation like that,
there's a there's still a significant differenceand what you have seen and what
everyone else has seen. So whatmakes sense for someone like Texas A and
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M and let's say fifty and below, who've not seen that really almost at
all outside a couple of seasons gettinginto the top two, three or four
in the country and we had amuch different system for figuring out a national
champion. Then what is this Aggiesteam and what it's supposed to be fair.
I'm not here to tell you thatI have the answer. It would
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be pompous of me to think thatI could tell you what Texas A and
M should be happy with, becauseif you ask me if my favorite university
was paying someone seventy five million dollarsover ten seasons, and you know what
I could reasonably request is eight winsor maybe nine wins and maybe a tenth
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win. But that year also youget to beat a number one team in
the country. Should I be happywith that? I don't think I would.
And it's sort of like, whatdo I care as far as my
team's investment in what they pay thecoach? Yeah, but that's kind of
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beside the point now, right,because every team outside of like two are
trying to win all of the gamesnow, and so the investment is high.
And if an interest is high,and the booster interest is high.
So with this cash cow there infootball, there is so much interest in
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your side doing not only well gettingto bowl games, getting to New Year's
Day type bowl games, getting towarm weather bowl games, but to also
then get to the top of thecollege football world. And then let's just
talk about LSU, there's also interestedstaying there. So it's not always just
good enough to get there, whichyet Oseron was good enough to do and
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make all the right call to pushall the right buttons he did. It's
now everyone in the SEC's birthright tostay there. Should LSU always be there?
Should Texas A and M always bethere. It's like watching the New
York Yankees in the Los Angeles Dodgersjust spend spend, spend, spend,
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spent, and you think that's goingto get you the nicest facilities, the
best coaches, and perhaps maybe youknow an insight on some of the players.
But outside of that, how impossibleis it to even ask texasing them
to do what their money's asking.Jimbo Fisher is not wrong for accepting a
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whole bunch of money to do this. Everyone should. You would, I
would, no matter how good weare, we would. But Texas A
and M is not. In theirfirst year of Jimbo Fisher, and they
got the big win over Alabama andthen they lose Arkansas, and they lose
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to Mississippi State and then lose Oldmiss Well, a couple of them don't
look that bad now. It's itproves how difficult it is to just win
at the level some of these coachesare and the universities are, and how
you can't just expect it. TexasA and M is an elite university when
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it comes to just the ability tospend bucks, but they've not really had
the infrastructure to win at that leveland then to sustain it. And let's
first talk about just getting to thatlevel. That's impossible for Texas A and
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M. It feels like, Imean, if since they've been in the
conference, the joke was their greatestSeptember and get them to October and it's
over. Jimbo Fisher had made thata little bit different, even talking about
this year when they were so badto start the season before a quarterback injury.
Okay, let's let's let's not actlike Zach Calzada, which the dude
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that was ruining this team. Andthen they have a couple of unexpected,
unfortunate losses, and then the winover Alabama propelled them into an opportunity to
where they still had a legitimate opportunityto win the Southeastern Conference Championship. And
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just about when they got that momentumbeating Alabama, beating a couple of nobodies
in the SEC, and then beatingAuburn, he had a big game in
Oxford and you let the old missdefense shut you down. College football's weird,
wonky and wild, as I loveit. And this conference has been
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top heavy, and so has thisNC DOUAA business for a long time.
To up end that Apple cart,to have a Florida show up there for
a few seasons, or to havean Lshoe, or to have an Auburn
to show up at that level,or to even get a Washington into the
College Football Playoff or a Michigan Statelike a lot of things have to happen
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you're away. It's not always justabout spending and thinking you have the right
coach or being in to inferior yourconference. It's not about that, is
it. Texas A and M justcan't figure out the formula. Is Jimbo
Fisher a bad coach? No,he's a great recruiter and he's a solid
coach. Is he gonna win anational championship of Texas A and M?
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No, he's not. But whois? I mean, unless like Luke
Fickle's going to Texas A and M. Who would you think it's going to
be able to win the national championshipat A and M. It's too hard
in this conference to consistently do it. And that's what makes what teams like
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Alabama Ohio State have done, butit makes it so difficult to believe what
they've done. Yeah, they haveslip ups. But guess who's there in
the college football playoff discussion every yearexactly even years they don't get there,
Guess who's in the discussion. TexasA and M have not been in the
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discussion. Granted the playoff is fairlynew, but they weren't in the BCS
discussion either. Sadie, you changeit. I don't know, I don't
know. I'm not one of theseguys who thinks Texas A and M is
sort of sort of snake bit,But I think they're just like fifty other
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schools in the in the country.They could have a really great season,
maybe pop up to be a contender, but for the most part aren't.
And that's the story with all kindsof sports that don't have salary caps,
and in drafts and so on andso forth, there's no real way to
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flip the balance of the sport ina significant way anytime soon. You know,
Ohio is not going to get thenumber one overall commit in the country.
You don't get to draft that guy. They're rich, get to stay
rich, and those who have lessmoney will want to be rich. Keep
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trying, and sometimes at Oderon getsyou, or Jene Chizik gets you.
Urban Meyer shows up for a fewseasons and gets you. But it's tough.
It's tough to be one of thenew kids in the block. In
text saying him has been sort ofthat little brother. No matter how much
they are better than Texas as faras games played recently, which hasn't been
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recently at all, or how muchbetter they look on the recruiting trail,
which is a lot better, butthey sort of have that in their back
of their mind. Texas A andM is a figment of our imagination.
We pretend that they are going tobe there. We want to give them
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the benefit of the doubt to bethere. We want them as voters,
which I am not, or asfans to some degree, we want them
to be in that ballpark, andthey are not. So now what I
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think. We just accept Texas Aand M or who they are, which
is a fine to very good attimes, and even every now and then
really really good, but never quitetheir football program. Their fans don't have
to accept it. I accept it. That's why they're lost. Old Miss
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did not at all surprise me.They've never been front runners. They're naven
side runners. They barely even comeup and get you from behind. Sometimes
they're just a team that spends alot of money and sometimes it works that
okay, and sometimes not. Butthat's it.