Texas A&M fans got a fresh reminder this week of why Collin Klein’s exit still leaves a sting.
The former Aggies offensive coordinator, now at Kansas State, was speaking at Big 12 Media Days when he reflected on the stretch that included Texas A&M’s playoff game against Miami. His comments didn’t exactly calm the old frustration in College Station. If anything, they made it feel a little more justified.
Klein said, “I don't think even as much as you walk yourself through it mentally, you really even understand until your boots are on the ground and you're in it- and then going through the playoff game with Texas A&M... It was an absolute whirlwind.”
That’s the kind of line Aggie fans were never going to love hearing. The hire was announced before Texas A&M even played that first-round game, and the offense’s rough showing against Miami quickly became part of the conversation around the loss. Marcel Reed looked unprepared for what he was seeing, and the blame naturally drifted toward the quarterback coach at the time, Klein.
The frustration wasn’t just coming from the loudest voices, either. Miami didn’t throw anything at Texas A&M that Missouri or Texas hadn’t already shown, yet the Aggies still struggled to answer. That made the offensive performance stand out even more, especially in a game where Texas A&M held the Hurricanes to their lowest point total all season, with the next lowest being two times what the Aggies allowed.
Most of the anger around Klein had faded over the past few months as Texas A&M moved on and turned its attention to the future with Holmon Wiggins. But these latest remarks brought all of it right back to the surface. For Aggie fans, the uncomfortable part is obvious: Klein’s words make it sound like he was split between two worlds at the exact moment Texas A&M needed complete focus.
At this point, there’s no changing what happened. Texas A&M has moved on, and so has Kansas State.
Still, it’s not hard to see why the comments hit a nerve. For a lot of Aggie fans, the timing of Klein’s departure will always invite one ugly thought: if the calendar had worked out differently, maybe it would have been Texas A&M making that national title run instead of Miami.
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