Moon Highlighting the Florida @ Aggies Game

Hey, Gator Nation! Notice I didn’t say “howdy” as I step into your camp in
the Swamp unannounced and all, and I am for this week anyway, your mortal enemy.
As the LAST AGGIE QUARTERBACK to ever line up for Texas A&M (although very
long ago) and face your outstanding team on a real football field (a Bowl Game
no less), I thought I’d just mosey-on in and tell ya how much we’re looking
forward to this game. Don’t let our 37-14 win back in the 70’s, or the fact that
your coach accused us of running up the score, get me off on the wrong foot. We
were just having fun and on a seven-game winning streak finishing up a 10-win
season. You won’t believe this, but it was the battle of the Wishbones and y’all
had an outstanding split end named Wes Chandler out there. Now it’s starting to
click!

 In fact, I’ll be keeping you up-to-date all season on happenings here in the
great state of Texas, being that it’s the only state we have actually
gone out and annexed thus far. My gosh, how insulting was that trumped-up
billboard someone put up in Gainesville? Geez, we wouldn’t go after defenseless
cities! We’re better than that.

Although I live only a few blocks from Kyle Field (that’s the name of our
stadium, although we clearly say, “Welcome to the Home of the 12th Man”), I’ll
be holed up in front of a big screen like many of you who aren’t worried enough
about this game to make the trip. We’ll all be watching something the USA has
never seen before on national TV, with ESPN GameDay setting up here, and no
less, the Florida Gators stepping onto the Fightin’ Texas Aggies’ non-artificial
turf. It’s been noted that Florida hasn’t played up to par during its last 10
games. Edge, Aggies. (Oh, and no, you shouldn’t feel the need to thank us for
this game day appearance you’re sharing with us. We think you’re quite special,
and those of us who have visited Florida like it very much. But you’re
welcome).

 [Related: Aggies Trash Talking Taken to
the Curb, Billboard Removed]

 For what it’s worth, we hardly ever know which Aggie team is going to show up
on opening day (and certainly don’t know now), the Thursday before our Battle in
the Valley (that’s the Brazos Valley of course and a river runs through it).
Hey, with a new coach, staff, offensive scheme, QB, hopefully defense and our
70′s-style uni’s, who knows what might happen? All we know is we’ve got us a day
game with y’all to play in 103- to 105-degree Texas weather. How fun is that! I
may order up a cold front though, so don’t fret yet. I mean, we thought when we
were getting into this mess that the SEC was exclusively a night-time
league.

 Unfortunately, the Aggs haven’t played a top 25 opponent in an opener in who
knows how long, and now we’re supposed to play you guys in our season AND
Southeastern Conference opener? Who wrote this script?

 Hey, we know you didn’t do much in your opener last week, except maybe help
Bowling Green’s head coach ease off his hot seat a little, but at the same time,
not much was expected (except another couple of TDs for your madder’n hell
wagering constituents). Otherwise, I watched a solid college football game
between two teams who weren’t supposed to be all that equal. Meanwhile, we
missed out on maybe having our heads handed to us by Louisiana Tech. Those guys
are good, you know, for being conference champs in 2011.


Here’s the thing, though. For the life of me, I can’t figure out with all the
wonderful successes your offensive-minded head coaches have brought you, why in
the world would you turn to defense? Was it coach Muschamp’s dynamic personality
that got him the job, or did you just want to rub Texas’ nose in it? Either
answer is perfectly alright with us Aggies, don’t get me wrong. We did the same
thing to our dear old “coach Fran” who took the Midnight Express in from
Alabama. And Alabama still thanks us to this day. From outside-looking in,
because we are prone to do quite a number at A&M, it just seems a little
strange that you’re changing your course in such a manner.


The Aggies, on the other hand, have gone all offense since canning R.C.
Slocum, the coach with most wins by far in A&M history and who went 6-6 his
fateful final season. I mean, who can stomach that? After our three sets of
back-to-back, 10-win seasons in the late ’90s, we deserted our traditional flair
for defense and just enough offense on most days, to somehow steal away the
puny, whiney voice of ‘option guru’ Dennis Franchione. And we haven’t looked
back at our defense since. We went low rent and high tech simultaneously. (We do
thank Coach Fran for running the Option completely out of College Station for
good, however, and for this unintentional act alone we pay eternal homage.)

 But as a result of this new modern-day offensive mindset, the ‘Wrecking Crew’
defense soon resembled Dumb and Dumber as it forgot continuously where to line
up anytime an opponent showed a new wrinkle, like a one-back set or motion or
some other exotic formation commonly seen on junior high fields. Hopefully we’ve
had time to fix all that. Hopefully our new coach spent some time watching our
defense get repaired, too, during all these months of practice time. Who knows?
Practices were closed to the public, unless you had a signed permit from the
president (he’s the guy with the bow-tie who does Youtube cheers with our
students on occasion.)

 But all that is in the past, thank goodness. Both our teams finished the 2011
season with identical 7-6 records, although you Gators didn’t show near the
creativity in losing your six as we did in ours. No, we were favored in every
game except the one in Norman where we were crushed, but only for good measure
because we sure damn deserved it. We just didn’t do so well after some
unbelievably strong starts, and our coach even said after losing in OT to Mizzu
at our place for the second straight year that he wasn’t going to “over-analyze
it or under-analyze it.”

 Is your coach in on coach-speak too? It’s amazing what they can conjure at
the drop of a game. Coach Sherman has taken his offense back to the NFL and his
quarterback with him. Well, to be honest, Sherman was asked to leave and our AD
resigned because of it. We just love fresh faces here at A&M (preferably
every four years).

So, about this game. Did I tell you I was a lefty like Tim Tebow? Do y’all
still like lefties? I love pulling for lefties, except I’m not a fan of the
other one in the NFL, the guy in Philadelphia. I’m hoping the kid from Boise
State, who won 50 games as a collegian, makes it. I’m a big Tebow fan. Love the
guy and can’t get enough of him, and the Jets were my favorite team growing up
because I liked Namath.

 Anyway, I’m about the only lefty ever to play for A&M, and I played my
first game during the opener my freshman season at 17, making me the youngest QB
to ever play college football. Don’t you love learning useless trivia in places
you least expected it? Yeah, gotta say it was pretty cool. It was against
Wichita State a couple of seasons after one of its planes went down with most of
the football team. With Marshall’s plane down as well, this is primarily why
freshmen were allowed to play varsity football again, in my opinion. It’s all in
my book.

 Our starting quarterback now is a young man from Kerrville, Texas who the
Aggie Press Machine is raging about as the first “freshman” to start a season
opener for A&M since 1944. But here’s a couple of things they don’t tell
you. Johnny Manziel spent all of last year going to classes, practices, team
meetings, doing film study, going through spring drills, playing understudy to
the No. 8 NFL draft pick and has been through two sets of two-a-days. Freshman?
Hardly. He’s a guy who gets to play two senior seasons, the way I look at it. I
know because I also red-shirted; only it was my third year, and I got to play
two senior seasons as well. That’s how it works.

 What I’m saying is, you can throw out the redshirt tag. Johnny is a
second-year player with a wealth of knowledge that is readily accessible and
stored up ready-to-go on the college game. He is equipped with a whole lot of
valuable mental experience and great talent. If he turns this game into a
“practice” mentally and gets into the zone that he needs to be in, he has the
tools to be a real class act. So let’s just call him a sophomore with no actual
playing experience, sort of like what we called all players between the years of
1946 to 1972, the time period that freshmen were not allowed to play varsity
football after World War II. I know– how old-school! Remember when girls could
only play half-court in basketball? Very similar thinking.

 But just for grins, let’s allow the Aggs’ publicists call it the way they
spin it. After all, it’s their program they have to sell even though this game
doesn’t need selling. Just don’t be expecting a timid kid with no background or
clue showing up all wide-eyed and scared at the prospects of leading his team in
front of a sold-out crowd and national TV audience. Bradshaw, Bert Jones, Joe
Ferguson, Joe Namath, Spurrier, Stabler; they were all quite good after not
“playing” in their first year of college. It would seem your QB is ready to go
as well.

 So, that’s our take on this very special occasion here in Aggieland. I speak
for us all when I say we’re glad you’re coming to our place, and we do not have
to go to the Swamp. That day will come, hopefully from our standpoint riding a
big two-game winning streak which our team’s publicists can then brag about. Our
schedule includes three straight on the road as it is, and we haven’t done that
since 1977 when we had to do five in a row. Can you show me a team who played
three in a row on the road who ever won a national championship? Me either,
especially when two of them we’ll be visiting are rather recent national
champions: Auburn and ‘Bama.

 If you’re making the trip, you’ll find all of us Aggies most hospitable while
we’re still outside the stadium. We’re a very friendly place, probably as much
as any bunch of tailgaters you’ll ever see. Might even have a cold one for ya or
a nice slice of barbeque. Heck, join us for Midnight Yell in the stadium on
Friday night. Try to get there a little early but don’t expect to be sitting
down. That would make you “one of them!”

 I would offer one piece of advice: take in our band at halftime. It will
inspire the heck out of you.

 Well, it’s been a pleasure.