Many Thoughts on '25 Texas A&M Aggies

I might be buying most of what Elko has tried to sell as they prepare for tough road.

The following is the fifth and final out of the five scheduled essays about teams on our radar - the Commanders, Giants, Longhorns, Eagles, and Aggies – between now and the start of the season (which ironically has already started. That makes this the rare season preview that takes place after the season has begun so bear with me). Of course, this is not so much a standard preview, but rather my random thoughts about the team and where they stand for me before the 2025 campaign begins.

I admit it, the Aggies speak to me.

Maybe it is their similarity in some ways to my native Cheeseheads. Maybe it is because so many of my friends and neighbors have been reasonable humans who told me that their favorite team wore the Maroon back in the late 1990s, but I have always sort of been attracted to a brand that seems to be so universally annoying to all of its neighbors.

Part of being a Cheesehead is being so into your team and the ridiculous dream of being football-relevant, despite playing in a village that shouldn’t even have a team and you bug all of your rivals to the end of the earth.

They don’t like how giddy you get when your team is playing well and the only thing in life they can all agree upon with the other rivals are that they all join hands in hoping that you fail. I don’t know why I am attracted to something only because everyone else isn’t, but I guess I was born that way.

Anyway, that probably led me there initially when I realized that there were so many factions for so many schools in DFW. I started following Texas A&M shortly after I got to Dallas (which surely was due to friends trying to sell me on them) and while I would not call myself an enthusiast or a blind homer, I would say that I am always quite interested in their quest.

That quest is to somehow figure out the secret codes and combinations to unlock their wildest everlasting dreams of climbing the college football mountain someday to the very top. It is one of those dreams that gets them laughed at and mocked because they are not really a blue blood and their rivals would be willing to swear it will never, ever happen. They have always been patted on the head and told to go play outside until dinner as they try to run down that dream. They always end up waiting until next year, every single season.

But the quest is the compelling part. No matter how many times they miss the target, they wake up the next day and try again all the way to infinity (and beyond). They never get tired of trying to push the boulder up the hill. They never concede that it will never happen. They never grow weary and they never give it up. It is the unquenchable thirst of trying to solve a problem that to this point has been unsolvable.

Now, I promise that doesn’t mean I hate your school because I enjoy this one. I didn’t go there and while my daughter did, I admit that I liked them before she was born.

But, it does mean that I love Dan Campbell, going to Kyle Field at least once a year, and the belief that stadium has that one of these years they might figure things out for even just a few minutes and beat their rivals for a big prize. The eternal quest to succeed at football speaks to my soul and I imagine there is a chance that someday it will be rewarded.

But, man, there are a few things that have driven me crazy about following these guys and that is probably as good a place to start in this (not) season preview. So let’s do it. The following are various rants and raves about the 2025 Texas Fighting Aggies and also things I think about the program in general.

Here we go: