Our evaluation of Arkansas’ 3-0 start to the season all comes down to Saturday. The scare against Missouri State combined with struggles by Cincinnati and South Carolina in their other games are enough to let us know that we don’t quite know how good these Hogs are.
Of course, we don’t quite know how good Texas A&M is. The Aggies are supposed to be good, but they have not been impressive so far this season. Here’s a first look at what the Hogs are up against.
Series & Program History
The Hogs haven’t seen anyone on this year’s schedule as often as they’ve seen the Aggies. Saturday will mark the 79th meeting between the two, with the Hogs holding a 42-33-3 all-time record. The Aggies dominated this series until the arrival of Bowden Wyatt at Arkansas in 1953. From 1953 until the Hogs left the Southwest Conference in 1991, it was all Arkansas. The Razorbacks also won three non-conference games (2009-2011) under Bobby Petrino in Arlington, but the Aggies’ arrival in the SEC coincided with the decline of Razorback football. Texas A&M won nine straight from 2012 to 2020 until the Hogs finally broke the streak with a 20-10 victory last year.
The Aggies have a strong football history, though they aren’t quite the blue blood that they want to be. Their program ranks in the top-20 all-time in several key categories, including wins, win percentage, bowl appearances, consensus all-Americans, and first-round draft picks. Their history has largely been tied with archrival Texas. They dominated the post-Arkansas era of the SWC (1992-1995) and continued to be the strongest program in Texas until the Longhorn resurgence in the early 2000s under Mack Brown. That return to being Texas’s little brother probably played a role in their decision to jump to the SEC in 2012.
Since joining the SEC, the Aggies have been a good program that expects greatness. Kevin Sumlin went 10-2 in his first season but faded after, so the Aggie faithful decided it was time to make their move, significantly overpaying to hire championship coach Jimbo Fisher out of Florida State. Fisher has done a lot of things right: recruiting is off the charts, off-field drama has mostly been limited (that was an issue under Sumlin), and the Aggies have successfully controlled messaging around their program to create tremendous optimism every offseason.
The wins, however, aren’t rolling in the way Aggie fans expected. Fisher is 36-15 (21-12) in his fifth season, which is, again, good but not great. He quickly turned the Aggie defense into an impressive unit, but the offense is trending in the wrong direction.
2022 Season Context
Despite an 8-4 finish in 2021 that saw Fisher’s offensive scheme and playcalling come under scrutiny, the Aggies once again “won” the offseason and captured a ton of momentum heading into 2022 thanks to the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class. But they haven’t looked like a top-10 team all season. The offense was choppy in a 31-0 win over Sam Houston before fully collapsing in a 17-14 home loss to Appalachian State that has threatened to derail yet another promising year. The Aggies righted the ship last week with a 17-9 win over Miami.
With Kellen Mond at quarterback, A&M had a solid offense in 2020, but Zach Calzada in 2021 and Haynes King this season have struggled. The Aggie offensive scheme is not innovative and the playcalling is predictable, as we’ll see in Thursday’s matchup analysis. Texas A&M turned to LSU transfer Max Johnson last week, and while he played fine, it’s too soon to tell whether or not he’s an upgrade.
The defense remains very good, among the nation’s best. This year’s defense is odd: it’s not dominant. Rather, it’s an extremely effective form of bend-don’t-break. The Aggies are incredibly good at not breaking, but both App State and Miami bent them quite a bit.
Recent posts
- Box Score Breakdown: Arkansas 24, Auburn 14
- The Day After: Week 4
- Matchup Analysis: Auburn
- The Week Ahead: Week 4
- Box Score Breakdown: Arkansas 37, UAB 27
Interesting Names
A coach you’ve heard of: Bear Bryant. Fordyce’s own went 25-14 at Texas A&M from 1954 to 1957. Interestingly enough, he’s not actually an alum of Fordyce High School, as he enrolled at Alabama before finishing his schooling, so he actually graduated from a high school in Tuscaloosa. After being offered to coach the Razorbacks in 1941, he declined after Pearl Harbor and joined the Navy.
A player you’ve heard of: Gene Stallings. Texas A&M has had the misfortune of having two former coaches go on to win national titles at Alabama. In addition to Bryant, Stallings – who played at Texas A&M under Bryant before coaching them from 1965 to 1971 – won the 1992 national title at Alabama.
A game you’ve heard of: Arkansas 31, Texas A&M 6 (1975). The 1975 season was probably the closest Texas A&M has come to winning a national title since World War II. The Aggies were 9-0 and ranked 2nd in the AP poll when they came to War Memorial Stadium for the season finale and got blown out. Not only did that loss cost them a shot at a national title, but it cost them a Southwest Conference title: Arkansas won the tiebreaker for Frank Broyles’ last SWC title.
Random Facts
At 73,000 students, Texas A&M has the largest student body in the US. The student population is about 60% of the permanent population of the city of College Station and about 30% of the population of the entire Bryan-College Station metro.
Holding its first classes in 1876, Texas A&M is the oldest public university in Texas, older than the University of Texas, which was founded seven years later. The letters “A&M” stand for agricultural and mechanical – the school’s initial focus when it was founded – hence the nickname “Aggies”, which refers to agriculture students.
Founded as an all-male school focused on the military and studies and agriculture and engineering, Texas A&M has a number of unique traditions compared to a normal land-grant university. The Aggies’ famous Corps of Cadets, which was mandatory for all students until 1965, has contributed to its military-style culture. Women were first admitted in 1965 as well, which is why the sports programs do not have female cheerleaders.
With its military role diminished and its football success mostly fleeting, the Aggie athletic programs have become well-known for their pseudo-military “traditions”, many of which seem quite odd to those of us who pull for, well, normal universities. There’s the fascination with treating the mascot – a collie named Reveille – as a military officer. There’s the highly-coordinated marching band and the highly-coordinated cheers – or “yells” – led by the Yell Leaders, who managed to draw some controversy for their very-unfunny jokes about Appalachian State at Texas A&M’s famous “Midnight Yell” the night before that game. There’s also the enormous bonfire built before games against Texas, and the absolutely Prussian-sounding fight song, known as the War Hymn.
Listening to an Aggie fan explain their traditions is a bit like listening to someone explain an inside joke that ends with “Well, you had to be there to get it.”
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