Texas A&M Football: Every Aggie ranked in top-50 of SEC since 2000

On Wednesday, FanSided released its 50 greatest SEC college football players of the century so far; a list that would include six former Texas A&M football players. For the most part, you can probably guess who made the list — guys like Johnny Manziel and Mike Evans should be obvious — but their position might draw controversy.

Regardless, the list proves one thing. Since joining the SEC, Texas A&M has been wildly impactful toward the conference, even without an SEC title under its belt. It’s important to note that A&M hasn’t even been in the conference for a full decade. Any mention of an Aggie on this list came between 2012 and now.

Which Texas A&M football players were too high and which were too low? Here’s where each former Aggie landed on this list.

Just Right: (38th) Mike Evans, WR

Mike Evans is a player on this list who will likely be thought of as somebody who should be ranked higher. That said, there are two factors that lead me to believe that he’s in the right spot.

For starters, many fans still think of Evans as an elite college wide receiver because he’s still one of the NFL’s best pass-catchers. If we’re being honest with ourselves, Mike Evans was the third-best offensive player on a team that finished second in its division and fourth in the conference.

The second factor here is that he only played two seasons in College Station before being selected with the seventh overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft. He did accumulate impressive stats in that stretch — 2,499 yards and 17 touchdowns — but he wasn’t around long.

Just Right: (29th) Myles Garrett, DL

When I first saw Myles Garrett ranked as the 29th-best SEC football player since 2000, I thought it was a poor ranking. But the more I pondered this, the more it began to make sense.

The story of Garrett’s ranking here is a story of two factors that were missing for him to be one of the SEC’s best. The talent was clearly there, but Garrett never had a jaw-dropping season statistically. In three years, he stacked up 47 tackles for loss and 31 sacks, leaving his mark on the SEC permanently.

Garrett was elite and if this were a ranking of sheer talent, he might be atop the list.