Texas A&M Aggies’ coaching search handcuffed by unreasonable expectations

What I liked the most about the Mark Stoops Era at Texas A&M was the relatively low cost, the limited time spent together, the lack of any troubling losses to SEC rivals — mainly the good night’s sleep I got while believing him to be leaving Kentucky for Aggieland.

What I find insane is that he’s not actually on his way to College Station.

What in the world was this Aggie fans’ revolt about? The school was all set to hire a good (not great) coach , a winning coach who would certainly have better success at A&M than he’s managed at a basketball school in Lexington, Ky. Also a coach whose team beat a top 10 rival Saturday afternoon in Louisville. Then the revolt on message boards and fan sites apparently was so strong that the board backed away from its offer and left Stoops having to convince Kentucky fans he never really wanted to leave, anyway.

In what way is Stoops not good enough for A&M?

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I’m sure most of you know the school is spending $76 million on Jimbo Fisher the next few years not to coach the team. You should care about that because, essentially, those are your tax dollars at work. A&M was granted more than $1 billion in state funds last year. I know the Aggies say the buyout money (at least, initially) will come from their 12th Man Fund. But, you know, if they really have $76 million lying around in a special pool of donors’ money, nothing should prevent them from investing that back in the school or lowering that $1.2 billion state commitment just a bit, rather than giving it all to Fisher.

When I wrote about Fisher’s costly exit not long ago, the standard response from Aggies was that they were proud to have that much money to throw away. It’s a crazy world, and nothing is more bizarre than the college football aspect of it.

The truth is that Fisher, after winning a national title at Florida State, never got the Aggies to an SEC title game in his six years there. That’s hardly a surprise because A&M did not make it to Big 12 title games very often, nor did they win as many Southwest Conference championships as one might think.

Just as a refresher, in the roughly 80 years since World War II, the Aggies have had one run of success. In the decade from 1985 and 1994, they won seven SWC championships. They captured no national titles and didn’t really compete for any in that stretch. The best of those teams — the 10-0-1 1994 squad — was not bowl eligible due to NCAA sanctions.

Prior to that, the Aggies won two SWC titles in 40 years. SMU and Rice were more productive. In the Big 12, the Aggies won one league championship, beating Kansas State 36-33 in 1998, in 16 seasons before departing for the SEC where their time spent with the big boys has been less than fruitful.

So now fans are obsessed, even after the Fisher failure, with grabbing Dabo Swinney away from Clemson or maybe Ryan Day out of Ohio State. They look at Day’s 56-7 record with the Buckeyes and envision that kind of success in College Station. It’s absurd to think Day (or anyone) could make that happen. He wouldn’t have the Buckeyes’ schedule and he wouldn’t have the Buckeyes’ players.

Same goes for Swinney, who, much like Fisher when he arrived at A&M, has already been diminished in the eyes of Tigers’ fans. Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence aren’t showing up to play a soft ACC schedule and then produce championships against Alabama. Swinney also wouldn’t be bringing along Brent Venables, the Oklahoma head coach who was his forever defensive coordinator at Clemson. That won’t stop the Aggies from crying out for a proven national title winner (or contender in Day’s case) on social media.

If they can be convinced to travel a more sober route, Duke’s Mike Elko or Arizona’s Jedd Fisch would seem like excellent targets. The Aggie players are reportedly pushing for Elijah Robinson , the former defensive line coach promoted to interim head coach when Fisher was sent away to count his money. He might be a worthy hire.

It’s all a guessing game but the fallacy — even greater in the NFL but still applicable in the college game — is to select older coaches who have won a title elsewhere and expect history to repeat itself. Different schools mean different foundations. And those successful coaches have almost always lost the key assistants and coordinators that were instrumental in winning so many games.

Whatever happens, expect the journey to selecting the head coach to be as entertaining as the results next season. Aggie fans view their head coaching position as one of the top five or 10 jobs in the nation despite the fact that more than 100 years of history tells us it is nothing of the kind. The SEC’s about to get bigger and tougher in 2024. I think Stoops could have had as successful a run as is likely to happen at A&M.

Fans convinced the administration to shoot for the moon. Learning from past mistakes is one of life’s hardest lessons. Some schools just aren’t inclined that way.

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