Resurgent Aggie baseball will need their best stuff to get their much-desired revenge against Schlossnagle
The chaos of last summer in the world of Aggie baseball gave way to a firm resolve as we drew closer to the season: with all this talent back and a new public enemy number one for the program, the Aggies had to put on a show this season worthy of their top overall ranking.
That vision quickly went sideways, however. The Aggies looked for all the world like a shellshocked team through most of the first part of the season, one that, despite the bevy of batting talent in the lineup, just couldn't get anything going at all.
It is because of that lack of offensive execution that the Aggies dropped right out of the polls before long. A&M looked completely lost; fans considered new head coach Mike Earley in over his head, and the season was thought to be a wash.
But something strange happened when the Aggies headed up to Knoxville to take on the team that defeated them for last year's championship crown: after being no-hit and run-ruled in the first game of the series, the Ags responded with their best baseball of the year to win both sides of a doubleheader over the top-ranked Volunteers.
Since then, A&M has been on an absolute tear. They swept South Carolina and just took a series from no. 2 Arkansas, going 8-1 since that dour night against the Vols. Now, though, they face their greatest challenge to date.
Knocking off the top-ranked Volunteers left a void open in the polls— one that has now been filled by the aforementioned public enemy number one. Jim Schlossnagle has Texas rolling, and with the benefit of a favorable schedule (by SEC standards, at least), the Longhorns have ascended to the top spot in the rankings.
The Aggies now will head down to Austin this upcoming weekend for a little bit of revenge. Just like with the last orange UT they played, A&M will have a score to settle against the Longhorns— but this time, the emotion runs even deeper.
In baseball, sometimes you lose. But no matter the sport, what Schlossnagle did to this program and its players is something almost without precedent. In that sense, it's hard to exactly predict what the mix of emotions will be from the Aggie players, but the motivation should be greater than any other series in which they've yet played.
It's entirely possible that the Aggies head down to Austin and completely faceplant, looking exactly like they did for the first part of the season. This is a Longhorn team that shouldn't be underestimated in the slightest.
But if there is one series that this squad should be ready for— coaches and players— it's this one. It won't be easy at all— but nothing truly worth anything ever is eas