OK, I got 2004 and 2005 mixed. 2006 we won 9 games. 2004 we won 7, but at least we didn't lose any 77-0 like the year before.
Actually, thinking back, after starting badly (41-21 to Utah that wasn't that close), the team settled down and won 6 in a row. Aggie fans were really excited, because it seemed like we were finally seeing what the team was going to be be under Coach Fran now that he had "his players" in place.
We were actually set-up for a big showdown with #2 Oklahoma at Kyle Field. For a bit of context, we beat #1 OU at Kyle in 2002, and took them to the wire in 2000 and nearly spoiled their undefeated season. So everybody was anticipating a great game.
But, before the big game, we had to deal with a 2 win Baylor team that lost to UAB 56-14 and their head coach Guy Morriss. The team came out flat, played like shit, and Baylor ended up tying at the very end. Except they didn't tie, they went for two, and got it. We lost 34-35.
The rumor was that College Game day was coming to Kyle Field for the OU game, but after losing to Baylor they instead didn't even leave the studio. It was actually the first time in their history where they just stayed home. *sigh* Before the Baylor game, we were ranked #16. After Baylor, we were #22. I have no idea what we would've been ranked had we won, but it ended up kinda spoiling the mood.
The OU game was indeed a thriller, but we ended up losing 35-42. I only recall that we were doing really well and one of our better players fumbled a punt or kick-off near the goal line and OU recovered. Up until that point we may have been winning. It was a total fluke deal too for the most part, but it definitely changed the momentum and I don't think we recovered.
OU went on to play USC in the BCS Championship game, and got stomped.
We finally defeated Texas Tech and Mike Leach.
Lost to Texas 13-26, and then got stomped by Tennessee as I remembered. As I recall, we were actually favored in that game (Cotton Bowl), but reports on game-day was all about how physically we didn't not match up well with Tennessee and they were right. At the time, believe it or not, the Big 12 was still considered a very premiere conference, at least on par if not better than the SEC, so it really started reinforcing things to a lot of Aggies at how much superior the SEC was than the other conferences and that was about the time that it really started to show on the field and in the bowl games and rankings.
Anyways, I have no idea why I typed this long message, but I was just curious about what I remember from a football season from 20 years ago that was pretty unremarkable.
