A Texas A&M legend offers a charming, but brutal, assessment of his Aggies
Along with Lyle Lovett, Roku CEO Anthony Wood, astronaut Steve Swanson, Johnny Manziel, and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Charean “Mother Football” Williams, Robert Earl Keen is an Aggie who gets a lifetime pass to say whatever the hell he wants about Texas A&M.
(Sorry, Eva Longoria, you went to Texas A&M-Kingsville).
You don’t have to like what Robert Earl has to say about Texas A&M, but he’s earned the right to express his thoughts and feelings about his school; all of his fellow Aggies are just going to have to deal with it. Because he’s Robert Earl Keen.
The country music legend graduated from Texas A&M in 1978 with a degree in English. Leave it to an English major who makes his living writing country songs to digest, compress and express the feelings of 99.98 percent of Texas A&M fans about the state of their football team.
I interviewed Mr. Keen in June, two weeks before he played a show at a sold out Billy Bobs. During the performance, he offered a shout out to his fellow Aggies, and the crowd, naturally, whooped.
At the end of the interview, I asked him, “Please give me your prediction of how your beloved Aggies football team is going to do this season?”
“Oh, probably similar to every other year,” he said.
We are not off to a great start here.
“They’ll come out rocky, and then they will find their legs and just about the time you think this is going to be their year, nope. They’ll fall down,” he said. “They have to get over that curve.
“I have been watching them since I was a little kid, and that’s my alma mater and I absolutely love them but I swear it’s the same thing every year.”
Texas A&M football could be a country song. There is true love. There is heartbreak. And there’s a dog.
Don’t shoot, email or DM the messenger. This is not just some random Aggie alum offering up their resigned prediction for another football season. This is Robert Earl Keen. Texas A&M legend. You have a problem with his feelings, take it up with Robert Earl. Report back.
‘Til you acquire the drunk muscles necessary to confront Robert Earl, another A&M football season is coming and second-year coach Mike Elko is now acutely aware of the unwritten parts to a job that he waited on to take over Michigan State.
SEC Media Days concluded on July 17 in Atlanta. During this time all SEC coaches dodged hard questions, claimed no one in life has it harder than an SEC ball coach, while whining about their jobs but not their salaries. Elko likely gave his non-forecast forecast about his team, and offer up reasons why this time it’s going to be different.
Much like with Jimbo Fisher before him, it’s Elko’s job to do as Keen suggests and “get over the curve.” No team/school in major college athletics needs the morale boost made possible only from a good football season more than Texas A&M.
Between the mass exodus of top coaches and officials from the department over the last two years, and the football team’s collapse last season, the Aggies need some good news. Throw in the arrival, and immediate success, of the University of Texas in its first SEC season, and it’s hard to be an Aggie right now.
Their home loss to Texas on Nov. 30 last year was only by 10 points, but it felt closer to 100. It’s just one game, but it illustrated the gap between UT and A&M that could be measured in light years.
In its first season in the SEC, UT reached the college football playoff, something A&M has yet to achieve.
The loss to UT effectively pushed A&M out of the final AP Top 25 poll for the fourth straight year. In a stat that doesn’t feel real but very much is: Since 2000, A&M has been ranked in the final AP Top 25 poll five times.
Maybe this time it will be different, but Robert Earl Keen said what he said for a reason. He loves his alma mater, and he’s been around long enough to see the pattern.
For Robert Earl Keen, Texas A&M is family. And family can say whatever they want with immunity.
If you don’t like it, take it up with him and report back.
