Alabama Football: Expectations too high in College Station

Late Saturday night, as the Alabama Football team was finishing off a victory over Auburn, news broke that Texas A&M was set to hire Kentucky Head Coach Mark Stoops. Online message boards and social media sites exploded with Texas A&M fans outraged and underwhelmed with their new hire believing Stoops wasn’t worthy of the job. The Aggies were hoping for a premier head coach coming off of the Jimbo Fisher era and this on paper felt to them like a downgrade.

On paper they may be right, going from a National Championship Winner in Jimbo Fisher who’s one of the biggest names in sports to Mark Stoops isn’t necessarily a step up. Then you need to look at what Mark Stoops has done to get the full picture. At Kentucky, Stoops is 73-64 with a 33-55 record in the conference. The numbers don’t jump off the page but, Stoops took over a program that went 13-24 over Joker Phillips in his three years at the helm and has built them into a Top 25 program. Stoops has recruited well while currently holding a top-25 recruiting class while competing with rivals like Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee for recruits.

At a school like Texas A&M with unlimited resources, Stoops may have built A&M into the program they thought they were going to get under Jimbo Fisher. Having the NIL resources and the attractiveness of playing in Texas over Kentucky Stoops would’ve continued to be a top recruiter bringing in massive amounts of talent to Texas A&M.

While all of Aggie land rebelling against the hire KY Radio’s Matt Jones announced that Mark Stoops was returning to Kentucky with Stoops soon after confirming himself. The rumors are flying with A&M outlets saying they decided to pivot to another coach while Stoops said Saturday’s win over Louisville convinced him his heart is in Kentucky.

The point however is that Texas A&M and its fans have too high of expectations and their standard is ridiculously high. The Aggies insist that they belong with programs like Alabama Football and Georgia atop the SEC while the results haven’t shown that. The program has had two ten-win seasons in the past ten seasons and acts like they’re above Mark Stoops. The same Mark Stoops that has built Kentucky Football into a constant top 25 contender while in the SEC. Rather than embracing a great recruiter who’s done more with less in his time in Kentucky, the Aggies threw a tantrum because they’d rather win the press conference than win the games.

Alabama Football: Who will Bama face when they play A&M

The Alabama Football team and Nick Saban will face off against a new coach the next time they face Texas A&M. The leading names now are seemingly Mike Elko of Duke and Jedd Fisch of Arizona. Both coaches have done incredible things taking over two programs that were mightily struggling prior to their arrivals. Mike Elko will likely be the fan favorite as the Duke head coach was the Texas A&M defensive coordinator before he joined the Blue Devils. Whoever the Aggies hire will be a massive recruiting rival for the Alabama Football program. The Aggies have the resources to compete with the top programs in the country but, haven’t been able to find the right man to lead the program.

Note: Records via College Football Reference.