Is there anyone out there who can make Texas A&M relevant in football?

By Richard Justice Courtesy of the Houston Chronicle

Mike Sherman wasn’t a bad hire. At least, he wasn’t a bad hire in terms of credentials. He’d coached at Texas A&M, so he knew it was a different kind of place.

He also knows offensive football and how to organize a staff. He won four division championships in six seasons in Green Bay. He knows talent, too.

Yet history will remember that Mike Sherman failed at Texas A&M. He was 25-25 in four seasons, and for a place with a huge fan base and terrific facilities, 25-25 isn’t good enough.

The Aggies decided to fire him in the wake of a terribly disappointing 6-6 season. The Aggies had a lead in every game, a double-digit lead in five of the six losses.

But they had neither the discipline nor the staying power to win. They were outscored 76-7 in the third quarter of their losses. At times, their defensive backs appear to have had no idea what they were doing.

Sherman was never going to get the Aggies in front of Texas and OU in the pecking order, but 25-25 simply wasn’t acceptable. Other than a 19-day period last season when his team beat Texas, OU and Nebraska, his four seasons were terribly disappointing.

I don’t know why he failed. He knows football and how to coach it. He relates well to people. He recruited some solid, but not spectacular, classes.

For Aggies, this is a familiar story. Coach Fran was a good hire, too, and he failed. Coach Slocum took over the program in the wake of the Jackie Sherrill scandals and kept it at a high level. But Aggies wanted more.

They believed if they could just get rid of Coach Slocum, the Aggies would be headed to the promised land. I don’t see any reason they can’t get there if they get the right guy. There aren’t many programs in America with more to offer.

Yet there has been something miss for a long, long time. Is A&M fooling itself by thinking it can ever be relevant in football? In the last 16 seasons, the Aggies have had just one AP Top 10 finish. In that same period, Texas has finished in the Top 10 eight times and twice played for the national championship.

I can’t see Kevin Sumlin taking the A&M job, but I’m the guy who thought Fran and Sherm were very good hires. I believe in my heart it’s just a matter of getting the right guy.

The Aggies haven’t really been relevant nationally in a long, long time, and there are Aggies who probably think