Former Texas A&M football players, staffers help lead huge upset in Week 0

Former Texas A&M football personnel help lead Georgia Tech to huge Week 0 upset over Florida State

Well, Texas A&M football fans, college football is finally back. Well, at least partially—today marks what has usually been known as "week 0" of the college football season, where there are a select few teams in action, but far from the entire slate that we are used to seeing.

The biggest game of this weekend, of course, was the meeting in Ireland between Florida State and Georgia Tech. These two ACC foes faced off in the Aer Lingus classic today, a new tradition in college football that pits two power teams against each other in the first game of the year over in Dublin, Ireland. Previous participants include Notre Dame, Northwestern, Nebraska, and others.

The top-ten ranked Seminoles were heavy favorites coming into the day, boasting key transfers from Alabama and others. Their most notable transfer, of course, was quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, formerly of Clemson and Oregon State. DJU had just had a bit of a bounce back year up in Corvallis after some rough going in Clemson, and FSU hoped to reap the benefits of the supremely physically gifted QB putting it all together in the passing game.

On the other side, though, Texas A&M football fans would have seen more than just a couple of familiar faces. Most Aggie fans are aware that the starting quarterback for Georgia Tech is Haynes King, erstwhile of Longview and College Station. King, though he many times heroically laid it on the line for the Aggies, just never quite fit like A&M fans hoped, and was surpassed by Weigman in the 2022 season.

It's not only King on the Tech roster, though: former Aggie WR Chase Lane was out there making plays for the Jackets as well. And a shot that showed the DC for the Rambling Wreck may have ticked off some Aggie fans who still are angry over the Anthony Hill and Harold Perkins recruitments, as former A&M LB coach Tyler Santucci is now the DC in Atlanta.

Of course, Santucci really doesn't bear the blame for those recruitments, and he's really made a name for himself as a top assistant here recently. It was his defense that was the biggest story today, able to stymy the Seminoles again and again. King and Lane made their fair share of plays, with Haynes's physicality in the running game impressing fans. Tech ended up defeating FSU, 24-21, leaving the 'Noles searching for answers—this is not how they envisioned this season starting off in Tallahassee.

In a different time, I think there would be a lot of A&M fans looking at this Georgia Tech squad, which boasts so many former Aggie personnel, and thinking "what if?" That was the case, after all, with many Aggie fans last year when King in particular showed out in several games.

But things are different now. Mike Elko has this Aggie program in a really solid spot, so A&M fans can be happy for King, Lane, and Santucci without the bitter wondering that may have accompanied a result like this before.