Texas A&M opens season against Notre Dame

Craig and Cameron close out Hour 2 with a look at Texas A&M's season-opener against Notre Dame. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
We're back. It's the Craig Way Show with Hall of
vame broadcaster and voice of the Texas Longhearts Craig Way.
We are rescheduling with Greg Chapper from Dave Campbell's Texas
Football Magazine. I believe he'll be on with us tomorrow,
but starting next week we're going to have our regular

(00:22):
weekly conversation with him on Tuesdays, so we'll do that
next week as well. But we're rescart working to reschedule.
We have a busy program tomorrow. We will also on
the program tomorrow visit with Andrew Monico, the play by
play voice of the Fight in Texas Hackeye. He'll be

(00:44):
with us. And Andrew and I have known each other
a long time, going back to his days as the
court side reporter U and he was a filled analyst
and even filled in for Bill Land a few times
on play by play for the San Antonio Spurs. And

(01:05):
I met Andrew when he was coming to the Valley
Sports Southwest back then Fox Sports Southwest Studios to do
some pregame and postgame things when I was going in
there to do high school football television shows. And that's
where Andrew and I got a chance to get to
know one another great guy, and he is now entering
it's kind of hard to believe this, but is that

(01:27):
he's entering his seventh season as the play by play
voice of the Aggies. It's been seven years since Dave
South retired and so this will be his seventh season
as the Aggies play by play voice. But he will
join because A and M's got a pretty pretty big
game cam opening that season at home against the Fighting

(01:51):
Irish and Notre Dame. You brought up the game against
the Irish in fifteen, Texas had that Sunday night, Labor
Day weekend opener when Tyrone Swoops had his top of
the Mountain moment as quarterback at the University of Texas. Well,
Aggie's get Notre Dame to open up the season a
pretty big game, but I'd say for both of those teams,

(02:12):
but obviously for A and M.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, a huge game for A and M. Notre Dame,
who again does not technically play in a conference, so
you think they're gonna somehow find their way into the
playoff even if they aren't as good of a football
team as most of us expecting for A and M.
For Mike Elkole in his first year, a good chance
to make a statement in Week one home at Kyle Field.

(02:35):
You know that's going to be a really fun environment
and you know, curious to see how does Connor Wigban look. Right,
he's dealt with injuries during his career at A and M.
He's just a sophomore, but he's got a lot of talent,
got a great arm talent, He's a very physical and
tough quarterback. What can they do in this first season
under Mike elkilf so should be a really fun game.

(02:57):
You know, we're getting to this point now with you know,
more and more Marquie in non conference play, and with
the addition of twelve teams now in the playoff, possibly fourteen,
we're going to see more of these games because we
saw last year with Alabama, right, they lost to Texas
in Week two, still made the playoff, and so I
think now we're going to see a lot more eighties
and coaches realized that, hey, we're not going to cost

(03:19):
our SOFA a postseason spot by losing in Week two
to a Power five team. Plus, think about all the
TV money and the revenue that you can get from
these home and home and aways. I mean, we've seen
what CDC, even before CDC, what they have done with
scheduling Michigan, Ohio, State, Alabama, LSUS and of course we
see this with A and M and Notre Dame in

(03:40):
week one.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, and I'm going to go back to your scheduling
point in just a moment, speaking of scheduling in looking
at the Aggie schedule, of course they open with Notre
Dame as we mentioned, then they have McNeice at home,
and then they open SEC play early two weeks. Three
weeks into the season September fourteenth, they open up in
the swap at Florida and what is has been described

(04:04):
as a crucial season for billion Napiers the head coach,
they're the Florida Gators that come back for a non
conference home game against Bowling Green and then you know
they've had this series with Arkansas playing in Arlington at
Jerry World, and that comes up on September twenty eighth.
They have Missouri at home. In October fifth, they have

(04:25):
an open date on the twelfth, that's the day of
the Texas OU game, and then they play at Mississippi
State on October nineteenth, come home to play LSU on
October twenty sixth, then they go to South Carolina on
November second. They have a second open date on November ninth,

(04:45):
and that's the let's see, that's the week after Texas
has its second open date, and then they played New
Mexico State one more non conference game on the November
sixteenth at home, and then conclude with the game at
Auburn on November twenty third, and then of course Texas

(05:08):
on November thirtieth. And so the challenges are there for
Texas A and m schedule. The other thing I was
going to point out, and I was going to ask
Greg Tepper this, but we'll talk about it tomorrow. Tap
and I last weekend were in the Dallas Fort Worth
area to shoot a high school football preview show for

(05:30):
Balley Sports Southwest. It's the annual preview show that we
do alongside Aaron Hartigan and the three of us, of course,
to the high School Scoreboard Live program every Friday night
during during the high school football season. And as Tapa
and I were gathering to and making notes and things

(05:54):
and getting ready to do the show, we were talking
about certain teams and all this kind of stuff, and
he asked me if I had a a team, not
necessarily a ride or die team, but a team that,
you that I felt very strongly about could win a

(06:15):
state championship other than the obvious ones, the Duncanville's and
De Soto's obviously, and Alitos and you know, teams like that,
because last year, you know, Timpson had been getting close,
knocking on the door, but they hadn't been able to
get to a state championship. And they had that fabulous athlete,
Terry Bussey, mister Texas football, and he played offense and defense,

(06:36):
it was all over. But he was coming off with
some knee surgery, so he wasn't he was going to
be used sparingly, if at all, early in the season.
But even with that knowledge, when we when we shot
the show, they asked me who I thought was going
to win, and I said, I think Timpson will win
the state championship this year. I said, because I think
Terry Bussey will come back healthy, and even with all

(06:59):
a tough comp petition they would face like Refeio and
all these other ones. The reason why I picked Timpson
was if not now win in other words, if they
don't do it now, it'll never happen again, or it
won't happen and foreseeable future because it was Bussy's final
go around and senior season, well they did. They won

(07:20):
the state championship. Bussy then signed with Texas A and M.
Supposedly there was wavering and all this other kind of
stuff when the coaching changer was made. But he signed
at College Station A signed with Texas A and M,
and the plan originally was he was going to be
a defensive back. But Tepper told me when we were

(07:42):
shooting the show that everything he's been hearing out of
College Station says that now they're starting to take a
good long look at Terry Bussey on the offensive side
of the book football. He's that good an athlete, even
coming from a two A program, the smallest eleven and
division in the state of Texas. We'll be back to

(08:03):
wrap up hour number two of the program from Houston
here on sports Radio AM thirteen hundred The Zone