luary 16, ^
Tuesday, January 16, 2001
Sports
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Ags’ squad
By Brian Ruff
The Battalion
Despite the Aggies’ blunder
in the snow in Shreveport on
New Year’s Eve, A&M football
fans can be positive when they
look back at the 2000 season.
Oklahoma’s win over Flori
da State in the Orange Bowl
gave the Sooners their seventh
national championship and shed
a positive light on the Aggies’
season.
For those who do not remem
ber, Oklahoma head coach Bob
Stoops' Sooners came into the
jam-packed Kyle Field on Nov.
11 ranked No. 1 in the nation.
The Aggies gave the high-
powered Oklahoma offense all it
could handle, coming just four
yards and four points short of de
throning the Sooners and gaining
some much-needed respect from
a national audience.
The Aggies were not taken in
by the publicity of the matchup
that attracted ESPN’s “Gameday”
crew to Kyle Field for the Aggies’
first home game with a top-ranked
national opponent since the team
fell to Texas in 1977.
The Aggies did more than let the
Sooners slide by with a 35-31 win.
The team showed that they
could play with the best teams in
college football on any day and
could also use the team’s deafen
ing home field crowd to destroy
the opposing team’s intentions of
walking all over the underdog Ag
gies on their turf.
The Aggies contributed to the
decline of Heisman hopeful Josh
See Oklahoma on Page 9.
THE BATTALION
Snowed over
Independence Bowl loss culminates up-and-down 2000 season for Aggies
By Jason Lincoln
The Battalion
A snow-covered Sanford Independence
Bowl on New Year’s Eve in Shreveport, La.,
capped off a season with more than its share of
unexpected shortcomings and disappointments
for the Texas A&M football team.
Aggie miscues negated a pair of 14-point
leads as the Mississippi State Bulldogs worked
their way back for a 43-41 overtime victory.
“People talked about all week how evenly
matched Texas A&M and Mississippi State
were,” said A&M coach R.C. Slocum. “At the
end of 60 minutes of play, the score was tied,
and when the game was over, only two points
separated the two teams, so they were obvi
ously right.”
Despite the miscues, junior fullback Ja’Mar
Toombs did everything he could to carry the
Aggies to victory, as his 25-yard touchdown
run on the first play of overtime capped off a
193-yard, three-touchdown performance.
Carrying the ball 35 times, the 250-plus
pound fullback looked at home while running
in snow for the first time.
“I haven’t given the records any thought.
I’m a team guy and my only concern is the
team,” Toombs said following the loss.
The team-first attitude lasted only so long,
as the Independence Bowl star became the first
Aggie since Leeland McElroy in 1995 to forego
his senior season and enter the NFL draft.
Junior wide receiver Robert Ferguson was
the next to jump ship as he aifnounced two days
later that he too would leave for the NFL. Only
one year removed from junior college, Fergu
son shattered A&M’s single-season receiving
benchmarks in his first and only season at
A&M.
Both cited financial reasons for their deci
sions and said they were acting in the best in
terests of their families.
The early departure of two offensive play
ers only highlighted the fact that the strength of
the 2000 Aggies was the offense.
Mark Farris came out on top of the presea
son three-way quarterback derby and proved a
perfect fit for a revamped Aggie offense.
Farris joined the NCAA’s growing ranks of
former minor league baseball players to return
Texas A&M running back Ja'Mar Toombs carries the bcfll in the Aggies' 43-41 overtime
to Division I football and perform well on the
playing field. Farris’ leadership and quick re
lease helped the Aggie offense become orient
ed around what he and A&M’s diverse group
of wideouts could do.
The new vertical offense was the result of
a new braintrust of coaches that included run
ning backs coach Pete Hoener, former offen
sive coordinator at Iowa State and wide re
ceivers coach Larry Kirksey, who held that
same job with the San Francisco 49ers.
That duo teamed up with offensive coordi
nator Steve Kragthorpe to help Farris the best
passing season in school history.
While the offense performed well, the
strongholds of Aggie football, the Wrecking
Crew and special teams unit, deserted the Ag
gies in the crucial moments of 2000.
Breakdowns in these Aggie mainstays ulti
mately resulted in a three-game slide that was
capped off by the Independence Bowl loss.
The Wrecking Crew fought through the year
STUART VILLANUEVA/The BattaU6n
loss to the Mississippi State Bulldogs.
with a young secondary and hardly any depth
on the line. Although the defense played well
in the upset of No. 10 Kansas State and the near
upset of eventual national champion Okla
homa, it appeared lethargic in games against
Colorado, Baylor, Oklahoma State and Texas.
Injuries also proved to be a major setback
over‘the course of the year. During the year,
every position, with the exception of quarter-
See Overview on Page 9.
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