Texas A&M Clarifies Its 'Championship' Claims
COLLEGE STATION (CBS SPORTS) - From the sounds of it, Texas A&M's Kyle Field is going to be undergoing a lot of big changes over the next few years as it's subjected to $450 million worth of updates, overhauls and expansions. But there was a much subtler change to the facade this weekend for fans who bothered to read the fine print.
Texas A&M decided, at some point in the offseason, to make some additions to its "Wall of Champions," which suddenly boasts a pair of national championships (from 1919 and 1927) that the school had never claimed before, as well as two new conference championships from 1997 and 2010. The latter struck some observers as especially odd, because most of them can actually remember the 1997 and 2010 seasons, and the fact that Texas A&M didn't win the Big 12 in either one of them: the 1997 Aggies won the South Division but were crushed in the Big 12 Championship Game by the eventual national champion, Nebraska. The 2010 Aggies didn't even play for the title after finishing in a three-way tie for first place in the division.
Texas A&M's only legitimate claim to a conference crown in the Big 12 era came in 1998, when it won the South and upset No. 1 Kansas State in the championship game.
In response to the ridicule that followed, the university has now appended the words "South Division" below the 1997 and 2010 claims on the wall, to signal to passersby that they don't actually count and should be ignored.
More egregiously, there are still no clarifications, asterisks or other qualifiers next to the claims of national championships in 1919 and 1927, when no such honor existed.
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