I've been lurking on here for a few days and decided to register and throw in my two cents.
1. The competition between Manziel and Manti is bringing out the worst in a lot of people on both sides. I grew up in an Aggie family. My dad went there, my older brothers went there, and I followed suit. I always had respect for ND as a university and as a football program.
2. I believe that JFF deserves the Heisman, and I'm fairly sure I'd think that even if I was a neutral observer. From the few ND games that I've watched, Manti is a heck of an athlete and leader and I can see why he is being given consideration, but at the end of the day I honestly believe that the performances put on by JFF can't and won't be ignored.
3. The SEC isn't overrated, and I honestly believe that will be proven when ND loses to Alabama. I'm not saying that because I have some intense desire to see ND get smeared, but I root for my new conference and I honestly believe that Bama has the better team.
4. Don't believe for one second that A&M fans are unfriendly or trashy, especially coming from a Tech fan. Honestly, I attended two away games in Lubbock and at both I was really appalled by the behavior of the fans. I have some dear friends who are great people who went to Tech, but for some reason, largely due to the fact that it is fairly easy to get into, compared to A&M and UT, the student body has a lot of morons with no class. Getting heckled and trash talked is one thing, but having things thrown at you, being cussed at, spit on, and threatened is something totally different and way over the line. At least we're "the enemy", but when I saw the way that Tech "fans" treat their own players, it really made me sad for them. Like I mentioned, it isn't all Tech people, but a very large group of their students.
5. Texas A&M has a friendly and interesting atmosphere, for the most part. I've been to a lot of home games, and very rarely heard any of our fans taking trash talk to away fans too far. The few times that that did happen, I remember hearing our own people telling the idiot to shut up. Like ND, we have a lot of great traditions and our fans are extremely loyal. We don't leave games when our team is down (trust me, we were down A LOT when I was there as a student '02-'06), we don't boo our own players, and we rally behind our team.
6. The "red headed stepchild of UT" theory is partially correct. For so long in our school's history they were a large university and we were a smaller, all male, military school, so in the beginning of our rivalry we were the underdog in every sense and only since the 70's or so have we reached somewhat level status. I think I speak for a lot of Aggies when I say that we have just felt frustrated from the Francione-Sherman years that we should have been better, and could have been better, but just weren't. We have had pretty much all the making of a great program--except for coaches and team leaders who can do what it takes to have us play to our highest potential...until this season. This season it all just clicked. With Sumlin, Kingsbury, JFF, and a lot of largely unsung heroes on the team, we finally stepped up and played up to our potential. Had we gotten the chance to play UT this year, we would have destroyed them.
7. Respect to your school, your players, and your season. I look forward to Manziel winning the Heisman and the SEC coming out on top in the MNC, but even so, I still hold ND in high regards. A few blowhards from Texags do not represent what Aggies are like in general, trust me on that.
