[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Couple thoughts here....[/FONT]
Texas has not fallen hard, its cyclical just like everything....and to suggest A&M has beaten them at anything is a major reach. In 2014 TAMU finished 6th and Texas 20th in the final Rivals rankings. In 2013 they finished 11th on the strength of 31 total recruits. Texas fished 24th and only signed 15 TOTAL..!! In 2012 Texas finished 2nd and A&M was 15th. The real question is why has A&M been so average for so long and why does their D suck so bad now....
As far as talent development, when does that fall on the players themselves...
A couple guys in here get, Mack was still a good coach and they still won lots of games, Greg Davis was too, and so is KF....things happen, fortunes fall, recruiting is fickle. Everyone wants to point a stick and say..."this is why this happened and why this team sucks now..." Its way more complicated than that.
Iowa isn't as good at developing talent (they are good at it) as much as they are at finding high-end talent that is miss-ranked. And interestingly enuff everyone wants to recruit 20, 4 star kids a year, but Texas, Bama, A&M, USC, LSU, etc...always recruit well even when they suck. Yet all of those teams have had MAJOR down turns over the last 10, 15, 20 years, some multiple times.
Another strange anomaly I see our fans pi&$& and moan about all the time is offer sheets, even when they are 4 star players...Piggy backing on what another started earlier, Robert Griffin was a 4 star with offers from Nebbie, Kansas, Tenn, Houston and Baylor. Andy Dalton was a 3-star with offers from TCU and UTEP. Johnny football was a 3-star with offers from...Baylor, Oregon, La Tech, Colorado St, Iowa State, Rice, Stanford, Tulsa, Wyoming....
The point is, there are literally hundreds of great recruits out there that aren't four star kids with 50 offers. You have to find them and then hope "your environment" is a good fit for "their personality". Then you have to hope all 100 plus of "your different attitudes" form good chemistry and their attitudes mix and game to game you keep your focus and momentum and then you have to hope it stays upright year after year....honestly nobody gets it. Its not as easy as this guy cant coach or this guy cant recruit or this guy has lost it....its way more complicated than that. Honestly strong QB play is the caveat, along with Oline/Dline, a modicum of good health and your team not unraveling. Then you have to hope your fans don't pi&%^& and moan so much you lose your job during a down stretch.
C