Dear Jimbo,
I feel the need to write a letter this season that I am sure as last season you will not read or respond to.
I entered this season with a sense of trepidation. While my husband held firmly to the belief that this is the year before THE year I knew I had heard that too many times in my years of watching Aggie football to feel good about our prospects. I clung to a small hope that our #6 ranking was not of an overrated team but straight out of the box this season I was concerned even though we put up a nice score against Sam Houston. But I am not here to rehash our early woes from this season.
You see my husband and I decided this year would be a great year to do a road trip. We have looked forward to a vacation all year that centered around two Aggie football games played back-to-back and 74 miles apart. We knew these would be tough games. Following the win against Arkansas, while sloppy, we had a little hope that we might be starting to see some growth in our team. And by team I am including the coaching staff.
We met a few nice Mississippi State fans prior to the game. They were polite. They all reminded us of their win against us the previous year. They all had respect for their coach. Heck, we have respect for their coach and like others just assume that it is simply Mike Leach’s mouth that has kept him from higher profile jobs such as you have. They were all very polite when they seemed somewhat sympathetic and sorry for our current situation with you as head coach. And they all expected to win that game.
Sometimes when I hear your post game conferences, I wonder if you were at the same game that I attended. We had very good seats for this game. I won’t revisit the many issues, frustrations, pains of that game but I do want to point out something I saw that was so telling and just downright sad to me. As I looked at our players on the sidelines, they looked defeated long before the game was over. Their faces showed that they had given up, there was no more reason to fight. And that spoke volumes to the state of this team.
We headed off for a week of vacation in Alabama, not feeling pride in our team. But the beauty of Aggies is that we are Aggies. That is why Kyle Field had the 3rd largest crowd and largest ever for a nonconference game the week after we became the biggest Aggie joke in history with our loss to App State. While we did not flaunt our maroon, we also did not hide who we are or why we were there. Some people tried to encourage us and let know that Alabama did have some bad years and maybe someday we will find a savior to save our program as they did. We smiled politely and expressed that we were happy we could help them by taking Coach Fran off their hands.
We were concerned that Max was out. We knew all too well Haynes’ record for interceptions. We also knew that if you could beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa all would be forgiven. As we attended the All-Aggie tailgate there were some of us who still believed you would surprise us and start Weigman. I led a toast that we were going to Johnny Manziel them – 10 years later we would start a true freshman- and storm the house and take down Alabama, just as your predecessor did with a red shirt freshman.
You did surprise us. And I was grateful for that. You had obviously made some adjustments during the week and Haynes only threw one interception. Even the defense finally changed to a four man. You are very disliked by Alabama fans so in large part so were all of us. Thank you for not embarrassing us that night. And as hard as it was to get out of the stadium (we were told that Alabama fans usually leave early because they are winning by so much) it may have been safer for us that we did not win. I am not sure how those fans would have handled it. But I was proud that we made them stay to the literal last second.
So, what is the point of this year’s letter to you? I had a thought this morning, after reading a great article about Bryce Young and Jalen Milroe. No one will argue that Milroe was not strong in this game. The article talked about all of the encouragement and support Bryce was giving to him on the sidelines and that is when it hit me.
Our boys played with heart this week. They did not give up, they did not look defeated and I believe they wanted to bring some Johnny Football down on Bryant – Denny stadium. It would have been something if you would had invited Johnny to be on the sidelines with you to offer some support and encouragement. He is an Aggie through and through. I see him at the games regularly. Just to have him on the sidelines hyping our boys up even more may have helped them get a couple of those scores that we missed. Having someone who had been in his shoes may have given Haynes more confidence. I will say this was the first time Haynes looked like he had some leadership on the field.
Alabama did not play well and made many mistakes to try to hand us that game. Seriously. Two missed field goals! Two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties! Pass interference! It was our game to win so many times but once again we couldn’t pull off a final play on the two-yard line. Our defense ran so much of this game and put more pressure than we have seen all season. They worked for turnovers.
You currently have a similar record to our previous coach and overall, far more talent than he ever had for a whole team. You had the opportunity to do the impossible just as he did 10 years ago. I don’t agree with the type of contract you were given. I am a business owner and would never put myself in a situation where someone has that much job security regardless of performance. You wanted to be a head coach. It is time to recognize what makes a Great Head Coach – they surround themselves with GREAT PEOPLE. Hire an offensive coordinator, hire another Kliff Kingsbury, and for the love of God get us another Mike Elko! Be the HEAD COACH!
When we enter next season unranked show everyone that it really is THE YEAR and that we are number one. No more excuses, no more talking in circles. These are all YOUR recruits. It is time to give them the team they came to play for and let them love being TEXAS AGGIES! Saban doesn’t believe fans matter. You have more than fans – you have the 12th Man and we are here, we are part of this team too. It’s time to BTHO everybody and be on top in the SEC!