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Here's where A&M should be at every damn year:

Win about 20-30% of the games vs Bama.  Right now we're about 2-12 or some such, with wins 10 years apart.  We should and can win more than that, especially games at home.  

Win 40-60% of the games vs LSU.  Started off badly in the SEC, but I think we're about 50% over the last few years.  

Only lose 20-30% of the games vs Miss St and Ole Miss.  More specifically, only lose to Miss State 10% of the time or less, and Ole Miss no more than 20% of the time.  

Win 80+ % of the games vs Ark.  13/14 mission exceeded.  

Split 50% of the games with Auburn at worst.  

Never lose your buy games.  App State I'm looking at this one.  

8 games should be the floor, a mediocre to bad season.  Should still win all of the Miss St/OM/Ark, lose to Bama and LSU, maybe lose the premiere OOC game (we're playing ND next season).  Go bowling.  

If the SEC stayed in it's current state here's how A&M should really stack up.  

When Bama comes to CS every third trip we should win at home and be in contention for the West title.  We haven't done ever.  When we won two years ago we were already out of contention.  It was nothing more than a fluke.  

If we do that, we have a chance of taking the West assuming we can split the series with LSU.  Ark, OM, Miss St are nothing more than cannon fodder for the rest of the SEC.  Throw in our permanent opponent, SCar, which we've won 90+% of our games.  

We should have won the West at least once every 7-12 years even when Bama is HOT.  Heck, LSU has won the West 3-4 times over the last dozen years even when they have fired coaches and had bad seasons in between.  Auburn has won a couple of times in the last decade.  

9-3 is a mediocre year, 10-2 is a good one, 11-1 is a great one, and 12-0 is tops.  8-4 should not happen more than once per dozen, but we should be winning 9-10 games 60% of the time.  

9-3 is a mediocre year, 10-2 is a good one, 11-1 is a great one, and 12-0 is tops.  8-4 should not happen more than once per dozen, but we should be winning 9-10 games 60% of the time. 

That strikes me as reasonable.  With the addition of UT and OU, there will be years with really tough schedules.  You could field a very good team and finish 10-2.

We won't play OU every year to my understanding.  I'll trade UT with Bama any day and twice on Sunday.  I think we're going to get LSU and UT every year, along with one of the Miss Schools. 

I'd need to look it up, but I think Jimbo is close to 50% or under vs the Miss schools, and 0-3 vs Kiffin. Forget LSU and Bama, he can't even beat Miss St. 

I think the SEC is eventually going to add a 9th game (once Disney pays for it) and at that point the scheduling will go to 3-6-6.

That's 3 "protected rivalries", and then you play 6 of the other 12 every two years, and then flip to the other 6 every two years.  

For TAMU, I could see it being Texas, LSU, and...?  Not sure who the third is.  A Miss school maybe?

Texas' three protected rivals are easy enough, it should be sooners, ags, pigs.  

https://twitter.com/max_olson/status/1724216954095829470?s=20

Pure madness.

I'm certainly hoping Texas can beat the birds in a blender in Ames, but they've been playing us very tough up there in recent memory.

IMHO had he been at a Helmet he could have gotten and won at the next level.Along with Bill Mallorey and Don Nehlen I thought if only......but it wasn't to be

I'm not so sure Tiller would have been that successful at a helmet. The type of teams he ran were perfect for teams with less talent who exploited a higher-variance strategy that--when it worked--could outperform their talent. But a cold day for a QB could derail that offense real quickly. It just so happened that he managed to get a future NFL hall-of-fame QB in Brees, followed by a career NFL journeyman in Orton. And that was coupled with an era in the Big Ten where teams were built around stopping 3-yards-and-a-cloud offensive strategies, and he spread everyone out 5 wide and said "let's see if your 4th best cover corner and your best cover LB can cover Vinny Sutherland/Dorien Bryant and Tim Stratton/Dustin Keller, sucka!"

But variance can be difficult for a helmet team. One bad day can be the difference between 12-0 and 11-1, and that difference can be the difference between a BCSCG berth and a "mere" NYD bowl. If you go for a low-variance strategy because you've simply got better players and grind your opponent into dust (see UM vs PSU second half), you limit the danger that mistakes turn into opponent points and suddenly you've been upset by the "Spoilermakers"...

I do think the game has changed, partly due to the changing of rules, and Tresselball or a Saban "get the best players at every position and a game manager at QB" are no longer going to get it done. And with the CFP and soon-to-be 12-team playoff, you maybe optimize for the highest offensive output you can get rather than the low-variance strategy to avoid a random loss--because a random loss no longer eliminates you. But those changes mostly really occurred post-Tiller. 

Same as it ever was. 

A layer of filth that is now within the rules.

I'm not so sure Tiller would have been that successful at a helmet. The type of teams he ran were perfect for teams with less talent who exploited a higher-variance strategy that--when it worked--could outperform their talent. But a cold day for a QB could derail that offense real quickly. It just so happened that he managed to get a future NFL hall-of-fame QB in Brees, followed by a career NFL journeyman in Orton. And that was coupled with an era in the Big Ten where teams were built around stopping 3-yards-and-a-cloud offensive strategies, and he spread everyone out 5 wide and said "let's see if your 4th best cover corner and your best cover LB can cover Vinny Sutherland/Dorien Bryant and Tim Stratton/Dustin Keller, sucka!"

But variance can be difficult for a helmet team. One bad day can be the difference between 12-0 and 11-1, and that difference can be the difference between a BCSCG berth and a "mere" NYD bowl. If you go for a low-variance strategy because you've simply got better players and grind your opponent into dust (see UM vs PSU second half), you limit the danger that mistakes turn into opponent points and suddenly you've been upset by the "Spoilermakers"...

I do think the game has changed, partly due to the changing of rules, and Tresselball or a Saban "get the best players at every position and a game manager at QB" are no longer going to get it done. And with the CFP and soon-to-be 12-team playoff, you maybe optimize for the highest offensive output you can get rather than the low-variance strategy to avoid a random loss--because a random loss no longer eliminates you. But those changes mostly really occurred post-Tiller.

Agree 100%.
High variance at Purdue is great because it means that once in a while you'll take down tOSU. It sucks at tOSU because it means that once in a while you'll lose to Purdue. (Note that in the preceeding sentence tOSU and Purdue are more representative than specific).

I also agree about the coming 12-team playoff. With the four-team CFP the upcoming likely 11-0 vs 11-0 tOSU/M game is probably a CFP elimination game. Last year it turned out not to be but that is rare in the 4-team setting. In a 12-team CFP world, tOSU and Michigan would be locks already because even with back-to-back losses they'd still get in. That changes things. It puts more emphasis on peak performance (ceiling) and less emphasis on avoiding upsets (floor).