Former coaching superstar's callous dismissal of Texas A&M shows how ignorant he is

Urban Meyer sparked controversy on a recent podcast appearance with some comments that he made about the Texas A&M Aggies and their level of success in the SEC.

Meyer went on the Triple Option podcast as a guest, and when the topic of Texas A&M came up, he had an... interesting perspective. His comments cause one to wonder just how close attention he has actually paid to the Aggies over the years.

"They've been relatively irrelevant," he said about the Aggies, speaking of the timeframe since they've joined the SEC, while contrasting it with A&M having been "very competitive" in the Big 12 and the Southwest Conference.

Urban Meyer calls Texas A&M "irrelevant," says Aggies' are an "enigma" because of lack of success

The context here is the Aggies' overall lack of success compared to their resources, which is actually pretty spot-on and something that many fans would agree with. A&M has everything that you need to be a winner, but they have yet to make a College Football Playoff or a SEC championship since joining the conference.

Of course, that's not really the measure of "relevance" if that's our criteria. There should definitely be more success on the part of the Aggies, but it's especially mystifying to pinpoint the move to the SEC as the beginning of a period of irrelevance.

While Texas A&M was definitely a big player in the Southwest Conference, winning six championships from 1985 to 1993 under RC Slocum and his Wrecking Crew defense, they definitely didn't have quite as much success in the Big 12. They won one conference championship back in 1998 over Kansas State, but they labored in obscurity during the Dennis Franchione and Mike Sherman years for the most part.

Their best team in that stretch was the 2011 squad who only finished 7-6, but was much better than their record (SP+ ranked them as a top-10 team at year's end) due to some second-half meltdowns. Of course, the move to the SEC came the offseason afterwards, and with it, the Aggies burst onto the national stage in a huge way.

After a true period of irrelevance, Johnny Manziel brought the Aggies to the forefront of the college football world. He was the first freshman to ever win the Heisman, led the Ags to an upset of no. 1 Alabama— the eventual national champion— and pummeled the Big 12 champion Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl 41-13. The Aggies finished as the AP no. 5 team in the nation.

The following year didn't see as much success, but the excitement of Johnny Manziel's play still drew a lot of eyes. Things tailed off over the next couple of years, but the Aggies were still nationally prominent in a way that they hadn't been during their Big 12 era.

The hire of Jimbo Fisher put them right back in the spotlight, and they were in several huge games during his tenure as well. The 2020 season saw them win the Orange Bowl and finish ranked 4th in the nation; they knocked off no. 1 Alabama again in 2021 in a legendary game; the 2022 recruiting class sent shockwaves throughout the nation.

2022 and 2023 were bad for the Ags, but Mike Elko's hire and the 2024 season saw the Aggies become part of the Playoff discussion right up until the final week of the regular season. They were a play away from going to the conference championship and thus were in the mix for a playoff berth in that time.

Now, with the win over Notre Dame, the Aggies are right back in the playoff discussion. Some have them as a pick to make the conference championship in a loaded SEC. That's certainly well within the realm of possibility.

Meyer may just have been looking to stir the pot with these remarks, but I think it's hard to deny that the Aggies have been far more relevant since joining the SEC than they were in the Big 12— it takes some ignorance of their overall arc over the last few decades to say otherwise.