Texas A&M Can Win Its 1st National Title In A Major Men's Sport Since 1939 This Weekend

So, should Texas A&M try to win this one for the Jimbo?

Former football coach Jimbo Fisher was hired by the Aggies in 2017 for a Texas-sized ransom to win the school's first national championship in football since 1939 under Homer Norton, because Fisher won one at Florida State in the 2013 season. He didn't come close, and was fired last season.

The men's basketball team, meanwhile, has never gotten deeper than the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Texas A&M baseball team never got close to a national championship game through seven trips to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, from 1951 through 2022. Until now, that is.

All that oil money. All that NIL money. And nothing.

HOT TICKET: Tennessee And Texas A&M At The College World Series

The No. 3 seed Aggies (52-13) play No. 1 seed Tennessee (58-12) in the opener of a best-of-three national championship series on Saturday (7:30 p.m., ESPN) at the College World Series in Omaha. Game two follows at 2 p.m. Sunday on ABC, and it will be interesting to see how many keep watching after 4 p.m. or switch over to Caitlin Clark vs. Angel Reese on ESPN.

A third game - if necessary - will be on Monday (7 p.m., ESPN). This is their chance.  

The Aggies are two wins away from claiming the school's first major national championship in the Big 3 men's sports since 1939. In their previous seven trips to Omaha, they went 0-2 or 1-2 six times before going 2-2 in 2022 under first-year coach Jim Schlossnagle.

Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle is on his seventh trip to Omaha, Nebraska, for the College World Series - two with the Aggies and five previously with TCU. A&M plays No. 1 seed Tennessee at 7:30 p.m. Saturday on ESPN. (Getty Images)

"I'm tired of leaving before the championship, so personally it's awesome," Schlossnagle said on Wednesday after his Aggies beat Florida, 6-0, to reach the national championship series. He previously took TCU to Omaha five times from 2010-17 without a trip to the finals.

"I would say it means a lot to me," Texas A&M pitcher Josh Stewart said. "I grew up a big A&M fan, so it's awesome to be a part of the team that is able to be the first team that's made the finals. It's really cool."

The A&M women's tennis team did win its first national championship just last month in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Before that, the last Aggies' national championships of any kind happened in 2017 when the men's indoor track team and the equestrian team - in case you missed that one - won it all. Did the equestrian team win it by a nose?

Texas A&M Edged Tennessee For 1939 Football National Title

But absolutely nothing as far as the Big 3 men's sports - football, basketball and baseball - since 1939 when the Aggies went 10-0 in the football regular season and were voted national champions in the Associated Press poll on Dec. 12. The team they just happened to edge with 1,091 votes to 970? Why, 10-0 Tennessee, even though coach Robert Neyland's Vols went undefeated, untied and not scored upon in the regular season. No NCAA team has done that since.

No. 1 Texas A&M justified its poll national title by finishing 11-0 with a 14-13 win over No. 5 Tulane at Tulane Stadium in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 1940. The polls were not updated after the bowls at the time. No. 2 Tennessee lost to No. 3 USC, 14-0, in the Rose Bowl that season to fall to 10-1.

So, Tennessee can try to even that score this weekend and also win its first national championship in baseball after six previous failed trips from 1951-2023. The Vols are working against a bit of a Big 3 men's sports curse as well. The football team has not won a national title since 1998, and the men's basketball team is one of only five current SEC members not to reach a Final Four, despite 11 SEC titles.

OPINION: Tennessee Coach Tony Vitello Struggled In Previous Omaha Trips

Tennessee is also in rare Omaha air. The Vols went two-and-barbecue at the College World Series in 2021 and 1-2 last year under coach Tony Vitello before going 3-0 on this trip. The Vols also went 0-2 in 2005, and just 2-2 in appearances in 1995 and 2001. Their best appearance until now was 4-2 in 1951 when they lost the title game to Oklahoma, 3-2.

Tennessee coach Tony Vitello has the Vols in Omaha for the College World Series for the third time in four years. (Getty Images)

"It's been fun. I wouldn't want it any other way," Vitello said. "We've had this kind of steady progress. And as they say, the journey is kind of what it's about. It's been a fun journey, in particular, this year."

A journey back home in a way. Vitello was an assistant under Schlossnagle at TCU from 2011-13.

"It's fun to get to be a part of," Schlossnagle said. "Excited to play an awesome Tennessee team."

Texas A&M has played only SEC teams since it got to Omaha, beating Florida, 3-2, Kentucky, 5-1, and Florida, 6-0, to reach the championship series. So, what's one more?

"Keeps our non-conference record intact (at 23-2)," Schlossnagle joked. 

Now-Texas Aggies assistant coach Nolan Cain (left) pitched on LSU's national championship team in 2009 and later was an LSU assistant coach. (Getty Images)

Schlossnagle has put together A&M's greatest team since 1989 when it was 55-5 and No. 1 in the nation by Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball entering its home NCAA Regional in College Station. In their minds at the time, the Aggies were on the verge of their first national championship. And A&M looked like world beaters as they won their first three Regional games by 65-13.  

But, alas, another SEC team stood in their way, as it does now. In 1989, LSU - coming out of the loser's bracket - beat the Aggies and coach Mark Johnson twice in one day on their field, 13-5 and 5-4 in 11 innings, to reach Omaha.

"People were absolutely shattered, as we were, to lose that second game," Johnson said 25 years later. "That game was such a shocker and such a heartbreaker that it affected people. They were crushed. It's incredible - regardless of age, the conversation goes to the '89 team."

Nolan Cain, Texas A&M's recruiting coordinator, can relate to that. A pitcher on LSU's national championship team in 2009, Cain became an LSU assistant and recruited many of the players who reached the national championship series in 2017 before losing to the SEC's Florida. Schlossnagle hired Cain from LSU before his first season with the Aggies in 2022 - 33 years after LSU destroyed the Aggies' dreams.

Texas A&M Aggies Trying To Finally Put 1989 Behind Them

"You came from LSU right?," an Aggie fan asked Cain soon after he arrived in College Station before the 2022 season. 

"Yes," Cain said.

"We still don't forgive you for 1989," the fan told Cain, who was 3 years old in '89.

Former LSU pitcher Ben McDonald can relate, too. He struck out seven Aggies in that first game in '89 to win his 14th of the season before becoming the first pick of the Major League Baseball Draft by Baltimore days later. In 2014, McDonald returned to College Station as an analyst for the SEC Network to broadcast an LSU game at A&M.

"I just happened to be there when they were celebrating the 25-year anniversary of their ‘89 team," McDonald, an Orioles announcer who is doing this College World Series on ESPN, said. "When I stepped off the plane, a flight guy recognized me. ‘We still can’t believe you guys beat us,' he said. ‘That’s the best team we've ever had here.'"

Until now.

"Just trying to reestablish Texas A&M as a baseball power that it should be," said Schlossnagle, who replaced Rob Childress as coach after the 2021 season. "Coach Childress is to be credited for this, too, and Mark Johnson as well. I'm excited for the 12th man. Texas A&M has an awesome fan base. You want to reward the commitment they have made. Obviously, we'd like to win the whole thing."

It would be about time.