5 Aggie Football Things

Hey, it’s the offseason and recruiting is good and all that. Maybe I should be talking more about the state of the current team, but I don’t particularly want to, So instead I’m going to share random Aggie Football things I’ve been thinking about semi-regularly. I say semi-regular because, quite frankly, I’m an unreliable person and if I commit to doing it weekly it most certainly won’t happen.

Shane Lechler warming up at QB in the 1998 Big 12 Title Game

You youngsters are obviously too young to remember this given how many of you were born in the 2000s. But for the rest of us old people...y’all remember the 1998 Big 12 title game? Yes, Sirr Parker won the game for us, but Branndon (ed. note this spelling is correct) Stewart went down with a knee injury early in the game...problem was that Randy McCown broke his collarbone against the horns the week prior, so the next man up was punter Shane Lechler. I remember being 18 years old and watching Shane Lechler warm up his arm on the sidelines and wondering what I had done to deserve God’s wrath like this. We were a hair away from our punter being forced to play QB against one of the best defenses in the country.

Fortunately enough that didn’t happen and we won the game, but yeah that memory still sticks out in my head.

Rod Harris and De’Vante Harris

I don’t feel like we talk enough about the fact that both De’Vante Harris and his dad played at A&M. Rod Harris was a pretty good WR back in the 80s, and De’Vante is one of our better corners in recent memory (and you’re wrong if you say otherwise—go back and look at the stats. Dude was good). We’ve had siblings (the Matthews clan) that played for A&M, but I think Rod and De’Vante are the first father/son duo to both wear the maroon and white (ed. note this is certainly not true). That’s pretty cool...especially since De’Vante was committed to OU before Sumlin got here.

Warrick Holdman

Warrick Holdman was a damn good linebacker who got overshadowed by Dat back in the late 90s...and again I dont feel like we talk enough about him. Dat got all the recognition back then (rightfully so), but Warrick Holdman received All-American Honorable Mention recognition that year and he was first team all Big 12. Warrick got picked up in the 4th round and had a decent 8-year career in the NFL. He was really, really good.

The 2011 Baylor Game

The 2011 football season was by far the most painful in recent memory. The blown leads, the way it ended...it was all trash. But that Baylor game was pretty damn fun, especially when you look at how good Baylor ended up being. RG3 won the Heisman that year, and Baylor won 10 games. But man, we whipped their ass that day.

Go back and look at the stats and if you get the chance watch the highlights . It was close for a while, but the defense owned the line of scrimmage. Tannehill threw for 415 yards and 6 (!!!) TDs. That’s insane. We won by four touchdowns (ok, fine 27 points). Such a dang outlier in what was otherwise a trash season.

Ryan Tannehill as a WR

Ryan Tannehill was a really good WR. If I remember correctly Franchione was god awful at recruiting WRs. So going into the 2008 season we had very little WR depth, and even back up QB Jerrod Johnson spent some time there as well (just looked and he had 1 catch for 36 yards in that awful Arkansas State game). But then against New Mexico, McGee got dinged up, and Jerrod Johnson stepped up at QB, and Tannehill was expected to pick up even more slack at WR. Which he did...over the next two years he caught about 100 passes for 1500 yards. He’s got some pretty dang good highlights too.

I’m also pretty sure he was a biomedical science major. So not only was he good at sports, but he was smart and that’s unfair.

Those are my random thoughts for today. No clue why I was thinking about those things, but I hope you enjoyed. I’ll be back at some point with more random crap like this.