Texas A&M football fans irate after ESPN is embarrassingly off on Aggies' 2012 record
Aggie fans flaming ESPN after they mangle Texas A&M football's 2012 football record and no one on the broadcast seems to catch it
If you took a straw poll of Texas A&M football fans on the most memorable A&M seasons since the turn of the century, you'd get two main answers: 2012 and 2020. Even within those two, I would guess that the amount of fans answering the former would far outnumber those that answer the latter.
Not only was this the Aggies' first season in the SEC, but it was a wildly successful one. Coming in with a redshirt freshman quarterback named Johnny Manziel, the Aggies ran roughshod over the nation's toughest conference, finishing at 11-2 after a resounding victory over Big 12 champion Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl.
This isn't even to mention the fact that the Aggies handed eventual national champion Alabama their only loss of the season in a late November matchup in Tuscaloosa. This is likely the game that guaranteed Johnny Football to become the first-ever freshman to win the Heisman trophy—which he did, over Manti Te'o and new Aggie OC Collin Klein (then the quarterback at Kansas State).
This was the season that launched Manziel into sports superstardom; a profile and celebrity that transcended college football and made him a household name. This was the season that made Kevin Sumlin into a rising star in the coaching ranks, with his name consistently popping up in connection with NFL jobs from then on out.
Then, today, during Friday night's game between Oklahoma and Temple, ESPN ran this graphic.
This is not what the Aggies' record was in 2012. In fact, it is not a record that the Aggies have had at any point since joining the SEC.
The graphic was apparently meant to show how difficult the transition can be to the conference. The announcers apparently didn't notice the error, simply remarking, "[d]idn't go so well for these programs."
Aggie fans, of course, noticed this immediately—and took to Twitter.
I really have no idea where they got these numbers from. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal at all—it's just confusing.