The Back Alley Archives

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Sumlin"
Kevin Sumlin, 35-17 as a head coach (Houston), 0-0 at Texas A&M, working on an impressive half-fro

• Oklahoma State, 30-29
• Arkansas, 42-38
• Missouri, 38-31
• Oklahoma, 41-25
• Kansas State, 53-50 (OT)
• Texas (27-25)

It’s been one heck of a year for theTexas A&M Aggies. First, they parted ways with their long-time arch rivals, theTexas Longhorns, and set their sights on what they perceive to be the greener pastures of the SEC–at least pastures in which no Longhorns dwell.
To commemorate the event, the Texas A&M sports marketing department decided to frivolously add two additionalNCAA football national championships to their resume over the summer without even playing a game.
How do you ask?
Well, for years, the Aggies have boasted one football national title, which they won nearly 3-quarters of a century ago in 1939.
Yet the Aggies have now decided that, in order to better fit in with their new conference foes, that they will also claim national titles from 1919 and 1927 as well.
In addition to now claiming themselves as 3-time National Champions, they’ve even taken it a step further, “updating” their stadium with their latest accolades.
The following picture of the Aggie’s Kyle Field was taken just last year, proudly displaying their 1939 National Championship along with their 17 conference titles.

Now, a mere 9 months later, the Aggies’ storied history has changed quite drastically as evidenced in their new stadium upgrades shown below:

Apparently, Texas A&M has decided to go back and rewrite the record books.
In 1919, Illinois, Harvard, Notre Dame and A&M all received a national championship from at least 1 different publication, but Harvard and Illinois received the 1st place vote in more publications.
In 1927, Texas A&M received a retroactive national championship from the “Poling System”, a ranking method developed by a Mr. Polin in Ohio in 1935, but it was retroactively given to A&M for the 1927 season.
Now, 80 years later, the Aggies have decided that they will claim them as well.
And about those new conference titles:
In 1997, the Aggies finished 6-2 in conference play and faced the 8-0 Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Big XII title game. They lost to the Big Red by a score of 54-15, but that didn’t stop them from claiming their Big 12 South title as a full-fledged conference championship.
They also now claim to have been conference champions in 2010. That’s partially true, but what they fail to mention is that they finished 3rd in a 3-way tie for the Big 12 South crown that season, and didn’t even represent the division in the Big 12 Championship game. But again, why not claim the title? They were close, right?
Clearly, the Aggies have had a great off-season: new conference, new head coach in Kevin Sumlin, three new conference titles, two new National Championships.
And all of this without even taking the field.
Well done, Aggies. Well done.

Cult! Fear and loathing in College Station (Texas A&M Cult Alert) Daily Utah Chronicle (University of Utah) ^ | September 11, 2003 | Chris Bellamy
Posted on Thu Sep 11 2003 13:35:49 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) by Recourse

Cult! Fear and loathing in College Station

By Chris Bellamy

Media Credit: kevin buehler / The Daily Utah Chronicle My two colleagues and I were terrified as we stumbled upon the worshipping ground of the Texas A&M football faithful.

I tried to escape. Honest, I did. But believe me when I tell you, I didn't know what the hell was going on. What was happening around me was dumbfounding, disturbing, frightening.

I don't know what it was that compelled me to stay. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was my obscene sense of curiosity. Maybe it was the smell.

Whatever the reason, last Friday night I found myself, along with my co-workers Asad Kudiya and Kevin Buehler, in probably the most peculiar situation of my life.

Cannons were firing. People were chanting. They were gyrating in unison. My God, they were doing synchronized pushups!

This was called "The Yell," and I found myself unwittingly and unintentionally thrown into the middle of it. It was there that I began to discover just what College Station, Texas was all about-and I'm not exaggerating when I say it may have changed my life forever.

More than 30,000 Aggie fans crowded the streets outside the stadium just before midnight last Friday, as they do before every home game, ready to take part in this massive pre-game pep rally.

Now, I had always heard about cults. I had even seen a few documentaries on them on The Learning Channel. Heaven's Gate. Jim Jones and The People's Temple.

But never had I seen a cult up close and personal until we settled into our places in Kyle Field Friday night.

It started with the pushups. Then it was the "Fighting Aggie War Hymn," a tune repeated ad nauseam all night long, one that still rings in my head at this very hour.

Hullabaloo, Caneck, Caneck. Hullabaloo, Caneck, Caneck. All hail to dear old Texas A&M...

Then it got weird. A group of young men, wearing matching overalls, took center stage down on the sidelines as the raucous crowd suddenly hushed. The men began leading these Aggie faithful in chants, cheers and the reading of Masonic verses.

And everyone knew exactly what to do-and when to do it. They knew what every hand gesture meant. They knew every word of every chant and every song.

Everyone except us, of course. We, visitors from Utah, did not belong. We did not have the ceremony down by heart. But we did what we were told. What else could we do?

"I was confused...and scared," a genuinely shaken Asad told me afterward. "I felt like if I didn't do what they were doing, they were going to rape me."

We leaned over and bowed our heads with the rest of them. We repeated those infernal chants and sang the praises of the Aggie gods. We leaped up and threw our hands in the air, and praised the Good Laaaaawwwwd, as the four men down in front declared a Jihad on the Utah Ute football team.

Beat the hell out of Utah, they chanted. Beat the hell out of Utah!!

The four Yell leaders wailed on the microphone and told the crowd to Riiiiiise Up! They made a strange, Hitler-looking gesture to the crowd, and all of a sudden the people around us threw their arms around us and we all began to sway from side to side, singing that war hymn...and it was then that I realized that everyone was speaking in tongues.

Hullabaloo, Caneck, Caneck. Hullabaloo, Caneck, Caneck. We're gonna beat you all to Chigaroogarem. Chigaroogarem. Rough, tough, real stuff, Texas A&M!

My memory is a little fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, everyone around us was wearing long, white cloaks and burning candles. And If I'm not mistaken, there was a virgin sacrifice as well.

Strange and terrible things began happening inside me. These people had been brainwashed, I was sure of it...but...I kind of liked it. I was oddly titillated by the whole experience, ashamed as I am to admit that.

I was conflicted. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I loved them and loathed them. I was repulsed, yet mysteriously drawn to their sick, twisted game, comforted by this theatre of mass worship, this cornucopia of rabid fan psychosis. It was like a KKK gathering on mushrooms.

Talk about worshipping false idols. This was just for the football team, for Pete's sake. The football team!

The U football team sometimes struggles to get 35,000 fans at the actual game-A&M got that many for the pep rally. On a late Friday night, no less. These kids should have been getting wasted, having sex and walking around town in a drunken stupor stealing stop signs and falling asleep in public fountains.

But no-at half past midnight, they were at the football stadium, worshipping Dennis Franchione while four boys in overalls did their best impression of an Episcopal sermon.

I'd never seen anything like this place. None of us had.

I mean, what can you say about a town that simultaneously symbolizes everything that is right about college football, and everything that's wrong about our nation's educational system?

But it wasn't just the football fans-the whole town of College Station was ass-backward.

The place was littered with the scary but aptly named Crickets on Steroids with Wings, which may or may not have been the apocalyptic, flesh-eating bugs prophesied in the Bible.

The night desk clerk at our hotel was named Lucifer. Everyone in town drove a maroon-colored pickup truck. The uniform code at every business establishment was an Aggies T-shirt. The school marching band looked uncannily like the Third Reich. We went to a bar where people actually played darts for hours and hours on end. Who does that?!

Small things, I know. But after our experience Friday night, every little thing made the town seem all the more strange.

When we left "The Yell" Friday night, none of us could speak. What the hell just happened, we all thought to ourselves. That wasn't just school spirit-it was something different altogether. Those people were just...different. If this wasn't a cult, I didn't know what was.

The experience of College Station was an odd one. To tell you the truth, I'm just glad I got out of there alive. Hopefully, the place didn't rub off on me.

Hullabaloo, caneck, caneck. Chigaroogarem. Chigaroogarem.

cbellamy@chronicle.utah.edu

Gators injury report from Texas A&M game

Sep 8 - 8:10PM ET
By Michael DiRocco | ESPN.com
Here's what Florida coach Will Muschamp said about the Gators' injury situation:
LB Jelani Jenkins suffered a thumb injury and was in a cast after the game. Muschamp said he did not know how long Jenkins would be out.
S Josh Evans suffered a right shoulder injury on a tackle. Muschamp said he believes Evans should be fine. "He just didn't get the strength back in his shoulder (to come back into the game)," Muschamp said.
CB Cody Riggs suffered a sprained foot. "He should be fine based on what I was told on the sideline," Muschamp said.
RB Mike Gillislee suffered an undisclosed injury. Muschamp said he didn't know what it was -- just that Gillislee got "dinged" -- and the Gators used Mack Brown on the final drive to seal the victory. "Mack did a nice job going into the game and getting the ball north and south," Muschamp said.

Heat cramps Gators' style in Texas


September, 8, 2012
Sep 8 - 8:30PM ET
By Michael DiRocco | ESPN.com


Texas heat is apparently much different from Florida heat.


UF's players struggled with cramps during Saturday's 20-17 victory. Eight players, mostly on defense, needed to be treated for cramps and helped off the field. That was despite the game-time temperature being 83 degrees, which was cooler than originally forcast.


"I'm not sure (why)," UF coach Will Muschamp said. "It's a drier heat here. I didn't know we would have issues with cramps."


Among the players who were affected was right tackle Chaz Green, who missed several series while he was receiving fluids via an IV.

Texas A&M fans were not happy with UF's defensive players getting treated for cramps because they thought the Gators were doing it only to slow down the Aggies' up-tempo offense. Among those who were treated on the field were linebacker Lerentee McCray and defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd. But UF's players said it was a legitimate issue.

"It wasn't humid," left guard James Wilson said. "Just a dry heat."

INJURY UPDATES
ONLY GATORS Get Out Alive


A total of 10 Florida football players went down at one time or another over the course of the contest. It was so bad, in fact, that Muschamp had to take a timeout in order to coach up a player before he headed into the game as an injury replacement.

“We lost a bunch of guys in the game. I had to take a timeout on punt return,” he said. “We were down to our third gunner at one point on punt return, which is the reason why I had to take a timeout. I wanted to make sure the young man knew what to do. I wasn’t sure he knew and in that situation I would have rather taken the timeout and make sure he knew exactly what we were supposed to do in that situation.”

Five Gators in particular had noteworthy injuries. Muschamp was not able (or chose not to) provide a lot of information after the game but he did offer some updates.


Redshirt junior Will linebacker Jelani Jenkins – Had his arm in a sling on the sidelines but apparently injured his thumb and had it casted after the game.

Senior safety Josh Evans – Got run-over near the goal line and went down immediately; got popped on the shoulder and did not return because he could not regain strength in the area.

Senior running back Mike Gillislee – Tweaked his thigh and hip early in the game and pulled up lame after his second touchdown grabbing his right groin. (Muschamp said he got “dinged” and did not provide any of that information.)

Junior cornerback Cody Riggs – Sprained his foot and should be fine.

Redshirt sophomore tackle Chaz Green – Had cramps, which he suffers from often.