Andy & Ari On3 - Texas A&M DEMOLISHES Missouri in College Station | Aggies-Tigers Instant Reaction

Episode Date: October 5, 2024

Wendy’s New Saucy Nuggs take the Crispy and Spicy Nuggs you love and turn them up to 11. Choose between flavors like Buffalo. Honey BBQ. Garlic Parm. Or, if you’re a real heat seeker, try Spicy Ghost Pepper, only on Wendy’s signature Spicy Nuggs.Missouri went to College Station to take on the Aggies, and the 9th ranked Tigers got BLASTED. What does this mean for the Tigers and Aggies moving forward? Find out Here in this Instant Reaction! Watch us on YouTube instead! https://youtube.com/live/eIXnRslhSHwHosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey

Welcome to Andy and Ari on three presented by Wendy's. It is your instant reaction show. Texas A&M has just annihilated Missouri. Ari, we watched the saddest little field goal at the end of that game. I don't know what purpose that served, but it made me just like choke up a little bit because it was so sad. That was an absolute and utter domination of Missouri by Texas A&M I don't really want to hear people say well they beat a top 10 team no they didn't they beat a team that will finish wherever Missouri will finish

but is not a top 10 team Andy that was the largest win over a top 10 opponent in Texas. You're going to take it away from it. It only matters where you finish. And if Missouri is going to play like that, they ain't finished anywhere near the top 10. Okay. Well, speaking of top 10 opponents that Andy, and we're going to get into this game,

but they have a Mississippi state LSU, South Carolina, New Mexico state Auburn and Texas left on their schedule. So one more top 10 opponent on the schedule. get into this game but they have uh mississippi state lsu south carolina new mexico state auburn and texas left on their schedule so one more top 10 opponent on the schedule yeah unless south carolina just goes on a run yeah uh but that would be the big one and i don't know that you have to beat them if you beat the rest of those teams yes okay so let's talk about the game first okay yeah and then we'll talk into overreactions and our re's hyperbolic mind um a playoff berth yes go ahead um so i wrote a column and it's up on on three right now andy but i thought that this game saying it rationally is reason for us to pay attention to this team moving forward

because regardless of whether or not missouri is a bona fide top 10 team, I'm with you, they're probably not, they're not. But a blowout against a team that has as many good players as Mizzou does, the way they did it, is reason enough to pay attention to them, right? Like that, to me, I thought that Connor Wegman probably had his best game, not even statistically but just a look about him that we've seen from him so far in his young career i know they were calling him a veteran on the television broadcast but he hasn't played so much that he should be at

his ceiling yet yeah he and marcel had i mean marcel i guess it only played three games but they hadn't really played that many like connor hadn't played that many more games than marcel at that point and he looked great and i remember when when they said hey game time decision he's gonna play he's gonna start i was thinking okay i are you sure you want to do this well now we know why like he looked awesome sentiment from a lot of a and m fans i was watching on Twitter before the game when they announced that Connor Wegman was going to start uh Marcel Reed did such a good job in place of him winning two SEC games and doing everything that he could to help A&M get to this

point in the season that he he played well enough where people thought maybe he should be the starter moving forward even if Connor is healthy so you, it's kind of a tough thing to do to go back to your starter. If you're concerned about that, if you're Mike Elko, but it didn't seem like he was. And I think Connor Wegman showed us why he wasn't. So Tyson in the chat, nobody's seen A&M play like that since Johnny. I was thinking about that during the game. It was like they did beat Alabama in college station when Jimbo was there, but I didn't remember any games where under, under Jimbo, where they just blew somebody out that had come in and we were thinking it

would be a fairly even game. I don't remember that since. And I think that's probably right. Johnny Manziel era, Kevin Sumlin era for, you know, first couple of years of Kevin Sumlin. We haven't seen that in a long time from Texas A&M.

Yeah. And like, that's the thing. It's just, I know that the gut feeling probably is just to be like, okay, we've had Mizzou in bracketology and blah, blah, watch as a result of their schedule and the players that they brought back. There's a lot of hype around them. They're not a top 10 team. I think that's the obvious thing here. But I think

the most important thing and the respectful thing probably for these A&M fans who have been through a lot is to acknowledge that they played a complete game against an SEC opponent that should be at least 500 in the league and absolutely destroyed them on their home field. When the sun came up this morning, we didn't know who A&M starting quarterback was and we didn't know what the future of this program was. Now we know who their starting quarterback is he played the best game of his college career that beat the crap out of mizzou and they have a very manageable schedule like i think it's a a reason to be excited if you're an a and m fan i think it's a reason to pay attention to this team moving forward um if you're not i i don't want to

take anything away from from what they've done because we don't know how Mizzou is going to turn out. But that was two classes of football, and A&M was in the heavyweight in that game. Oh, yeah. So Brett in the chat says, harder upcoming game for Texas A&M, non-Texas division. LSU at home or at South Carolina?

I kind of want to see the two teams we're talking about play Ole Miss as we're recording this. South Carolina is about to play Ole Miss. LSU will play Ole Miss next week. And then maybe we'll be able to tell. LSU did beat South Carolina, but Lenora Sellers got hurt at the end of the first half. So I think both of those could be challenging for Texas A&M. It's not like this is a cakewalk the rest of the way.

But I think what you were mentioning in your column, and this makes sense, is it's all games they can win. And honestly, if they play the way they did today, they can give Texas a win. They probably should. Yeah. Well, it is funny because now we're in october andy uh we are a week removed officially from the red river rivalry game and i think it's about time

that we start to consider our thanksgiving plans and if you had an early front runner you know with the design of going to a game that's going to be between a team that is either in or out if they win or lose getting barbecuing on Getting barbecue on Black Friday in your town and then driving down to College Station that Saturday? Yes, please. I think that's probably the whole position right now over Auburn, Alabama and Ohio State, Michigan, right? I mean, that's what it looks like.

Well, let's not forget In-N-Out on the Sunset Strip before we go to Notre Dame, USC. That's also part. Actually, while we're talking about a huge texas a&m win we kind of have to bring the irish into the conversation do you know what people are saying oh you're just dragging notre dame into this because that gets clicked yeah i am but it's also relevant here because that notre dame win against texas a&m in college station looks even better now. Yes, they lost to Illinois, and that sucks, but that is a huge win now.

Yeah, I don't know what happened at the end of the Massachusetts game today, but they lost to NIU. But UMass was beating NIU before half, and it was just funny to do the transitive property game there for a minute, Andy, where Notre Dame loses to A&M, A&M beats Mizzou, Notre Dame loses to NIU, and NIU is losing to UMass right before halftime. So it's just like a weird sport. But yeah, I mean, listen, we have to continually show regard

to teams that we would otherwise think are a afterthought in the 14 field in this field, right? Like that is the luxury and the benefit of this system. And if you want to be in that system, which, you know, we are, you have to acknowledge when a team like A&M wins a game like this, you have to acknowledge what this means for Notre Dame, especially when we've come to find out and know that the committee values important wins more than they penalize you for bad losses. So like, yes, I think that like Notre Dame was probably in a pretty good position already. But if A&M turns out to be a nine and three or a 10 and two team, hell, maybe even an 11-1 team, who knows? Then Notre Dame looks a lot sexier than they did when we woke up this morning.

So, yeah, that's absolutely part of it. And, you know, context and puzzle pieces are being put together. And, you know, it was an exciting game. Another interesting question this raises, and I realize we're just throwing out all the hyperbole right now, but still, this is a strange place for A&M to be right now, even though Vegas loved them all offseason and had them as an eight-and-a-half win total team. You think about that.

They could be a nine-and-three team. We wouldn't consider that a disappointing season. The rest of the way, if they drop two here and they're a nine-and-three team, kind of right at where Vegas had them, that's good. They'd be not satisfied with that now because now you start thinking playoffs. But think about the Saturday after Thanksgiving last year. Everybody's focusing on Michigan-Ohio State game, but all the drama is playing out in College Station.

The board of trustees goes berserk because it looks like Ross Bjork's about to hire Mark Stoops. By the end of the night, Mike Elko's the hire. How big was that? Because it seems like Mike Elko's the right guy for this job. Yeah. I mean, early returns are pretty high, right? I mean, I was just kind of fantasizing in the Notre Dame world, like if Texas A&M would have won the game, like where we would have them right now, Andy. I mean, think about it. Like if they were five and oh, and they had to win over Notre Dame and they had to win over Mizzou the way they just won this game, they'd probably be a top 10 team, right? Probably they would be. So yeah, you know, the thing that we have to, you know, wonder out loud, and here's the thing that

I kind of explored for a minute there in the column I wrote, was that I don't recall if you had Mizzou still in your bracketology. I had Mizzou in my bubble watch as a first four out, but I had them in the mix. That's right, I had them, yeah. So if you have them as a first four out, that means that you thought that this team coming into the weekend

was a top 15 team, right, in flirting with that. And I think part of the reason why we had that is our job and our attempt to project forward. And we looked at Mizzou's schedule and we thought, hey, this team doesn't have to be Alabama to be a 10-2 team at the end of the year in the mix. So I think that even if Mizzou's not who we thought they were, I think that Texas A&M, by doing what they did to Mizzou

on their home field on Saturday, absorbs the Mizzouness that we had. And I think that they get the benefit of the doubt of being represented in those bubble watch scenarios. And like Mizzou's schedule, looking at it here, they still have to play Alabama. But if you look at Texasxas a&m's remaining schedule and they'll get a a credit for the time being of beating a top 10 team the way they just did it's very similar now i think you know having lsu there is i think it's harder

you think mizzou's is harder yeah i do think because i i think auburn like if mizzou plays the way they did today auburn's going to beat them. And then they're going to lose to Alabama, and then they might lose to Oklahoma. If they play, now, granted, this may be the worst they could possibly play. They bounce back. They're fine. They beat Auburn. Mizzou-Alabama's a good game, and they can beat Oklahoma. But what we've seen in SEC play is, over time against Vanderbilt,

getting your doors blown off against Texas A&M. It might be that they just ain't it. Yeah. And if you think Mizzou's is harder, I think it's, they're kind of similar because they both have to play Auburn and, uh, A&M has LSU and,

and Mizzou doesn't, but then Mizzou has, uh, Oklahoma. And I don't think that like you could split hairs with those two. So, um, you know, you're in a position where if you were going to suspend your belief and put Mizzou in the mix at the end of the year, then there's no possible way that A&M with the performance that we saw is not. So I don't know if they're going to, you know, going undefeated or winning out or running the table to Texas and the sec is a very hard proposition. If you ask me right now to give a guess of whether they would do that or not,

my answer would probably be no, because we know even though it's manageable, it's still hard. Um, but if we get to a point where they are, for dramatic purposes, if they go into that Texas game at nine and two, and essentially a playoff berth is on the line and Texas can crush their dreams or A&M can beat Texas, get bragging rights and make the play. Like that's everything you want on the last week. Think about the cocktail of grab ash you get on that one too, right?

The game. And if they are a nine and two team at that point, and they are more like what we saw today than they are some other dysfunctional version, you're going to be playing in a stadium that sets decibel records. It's the first time that they've played in 10 years. The hate on this rivalry, I think is different than any other rivalry in college football because of

the disdain that people have for each other as humans. Like there is a lot of, there's a lot of ways a game like that can go haywire because in rivalry games too andy it's not always about titan versus titan sometimes it's tight it's titan versus team that's pretty good but on the right day is really really good and i think that texas a&m texas a&m probably lives up to that and i can't imagine the emotion like you know right now if Texas was just Alabama you might just mark that up as a loss but because that game is where it is and who it's between who it's between I think that there is a little bit maybe like a 20 or 25 percent skew on the expectation of what might happen in that game yeah well I mean Texas A&M has a lot

of other things to worry about before they get to that point. Well, let us worry about it. Exactly. I'm just excited to see what happens from this point forward because that Texas A&M-LSU game is looking fantastic. Again, we'll see what happens with the Gamecocks. They're kind of a wild card in all this, I feel like. And then we won't even know where Auburn's going to be. What is Auburn going to be at that point? Because they might have won some games and bounced back.

They might have lost a bunch more and are just done. We have no clue. So this is going to be a fascinating, fascinating end of the season for Texas A&M. I will say Nick Skorton, is he the best player or the most impactful player to come out of the transfer portal this year? Yeah. Yeah, I think it's cool that he's also from that area of the country. Yeah. He's like right outside of Aggieland.

And yeah, so I do think, I mean, if you actually like add the ingredients up and give A&M the benefit of the doubt in all of the situations, you can cock yourself into them being like a very good football team. Okay, five-star quarterback who's a hit, young receivers that are really exciting like Terry Busse. You have Nick Skorten and the best defensive line maybe in the SEC or one of them at least, maybe in the country. Like you have a really good running back tandem.

I mean, you have a pretty good mixture of what makes a good football team. So like you. I was impressed with the offensive line play today. That's the one thing we were kind of worried about. And they lost their starting center early in the season. But those guys played really well. They did. And, you know, I think that there is some question about some of the leaky.

What am I trying to say here? The secondary was leaky for a little bit. There were a few coverage busts like that, that Luther Burden touchdown that got called. That was not a coverage bust. I will explain that to everybody. That was not a coverage bust. The refs actually, I mean, because you saw because the refs got it right. The corner stopped covering Luther Burden because he saw Brady Cook running at him,

and there was an offensive lineman six yards down the field. So he's going, well, Brady Cook's running it because it's illegal at that point to throw a forward pass across the line of scrimmage. But the thing is that the refs missed that call. That just looks like he didn't know what he was doing. Yeah, but there were like three or four other plays, too, even on the first drive where there were were some wide open people really there were some drop right there were some drops or there was one where cook just missed that was a touchdown

to theo weiss so you know maybe we're splitting hairs here but i think that if you're a texas a&m fan smoke a cigar have a whiskey enjoy that beautiful beautiful Texas air today, because it's a pretty good day to be an Aggie. If you ask me, you know, is that not the perfect college football Saturday? Cause I know sec fans hate noon games. Cause you don't really get a tailgate. It's it's all, you know, rush, rush, rush, rush, rush, get to the stadium,

but to kick the crap out of a team like that in a noon game and then get to party the rest of the day and watch all the games with no stress on you because nothing that happens will bother you. Yeah, you can just enjoy making fun of everybody else. That's basically the joy of everything. And it was just so easy to lose track of A&M because they came into the year with a new coach.

We weren't 100% sure what they were going to be this year. I think we're still trying to figure out who they're going to be this year. They lose to Notre Dame right out of the gate. Notre Dame loses to NIU. It's very easy to lose track of teams. So I think that this team, with what they did against Mizzou, regardless of how good Mizzou ends up being, I think is a reason for them to be a part of our podcast conversation more. We have talked about them quite a bit, but for them to be at the forefront of this discussion, you should see their logo on Bubble Watch and Bracketology. And, you know, they have at least pulled up a seat

at the table of the discussion, which is maybe the best place you could be as a sports fan. Yeah, and that's all they needed to do at this point, especially after the loss to Notre Dame when they were just, you know, what's going to happen now? Where are we really, you know, what's going to happen now? Where are we really? You know, I think this is going to propel them. And look, you don't have to make the playoff this year if you're Texas A&M.

It'd be nice if you did. But your first-year coach, like he said, Elko said it himself, they think the talent can be quite a bit better there. But imagine if they are ahead of schedule imagine if they do I mean this is this could be a really fun season for them absolutely and you know we've seen the type of rosters that A&M can assemble and you know when people get excited down there you know things come together and if you kind of put that in with a person who's just going to be relentlessly competent because like say what you want about Jimbo Fisher and the things that we've

read and heard about what was going on in that program were not healthy so you you infuse that investment both in players and staff and facilities and all the things that A&M has already proven to do so well and then mix that with a coach that is just, you know, all about business and being competent and, and, you know, hexing out any dysfunction, you might actually find yourself in a position where, where this is a very functionally good program. And like, you know, everything, that's the reason why I loved the hire to begin with. There wasn't some splashy hire to, you know, show everybody how rich they were to, you know, bring somebody in that had a big name, but maybe not as much substance. They went out and got a person who is in an incentive-based

situation, who is familiar with the place, who isn't a sexy hire, but is somebody who has proven that he can win at places that have tough circumstances like it do, comes in and just rights the ship. And you you have that strong stern competent person leading the way and then all of a sudden the the monopoly money starts flying all over the place you might you might find yourself in a position to do something so you know it was one win against a team that we are probably going to find out isn't very good but that doesn't mean you should not enjoy what you saw that was an ass kicking in every sense of the word and uh happy for them gonna be fun to watch the rest of the year gonna be fun kicking in every sense of the word and happy for them.

Going to be fun to watch the rest of the year. Going to be fun to watch the rest of the day. I'm headed to the UCF Florida game. Hey, Ari, if there's a big result here in this afternoon window, I say we get back together. You know what, Andy? I'm going to say a prayer that your day goes smoothly because you might have a long one. I don't know how things are going to go. This could be a

long next 24 hours in the old 3-5-2, but we shall see what happens. Ari, it's been a pleasure. Congratulations, Aggies. Enjoy that whiskey because it's going to taste awfully good the rest of the night.