Today at 3:30 p.m. on ABC, the Texas A&M Aggies will take on the defending national champion Alabama Crimson Tide in College Station, in an effort to prove that last season's massive upset in Bear Bryant Stadium was no fluke. Live stream the game free here; fans hoping to see the Tide roll can listen to the action on 92.9 The Game, while Aggies backers can do the same on 105.3 The Fan.
Last season the Tide were beaten by a cocky freshman quarterback named Johnny Manziel, who threw at will and ran roughshod over Alabama's stout defense. He went on to win the Heisman trophy, becoming the first true freshman in the history of college football to take home the hardware. He also became the biggest name in non-professional football.
In fact, his nickname is Johnny Football. Manziel's been in the headlines this year for everything from illegally profiting off autographs to being allegedly hung over at a quarterback camp held by Peyton Manning. His coach, Kevin Sumlin, has tired of Manziel mania.
"Everything that we do here at Texas A&M is about team and it's about building our team, building our program and not the individual," Sumlin said. "Saturday afternoon you're going to have two football teams, and I just don't understand why there's got to be one guy singled out with a camera. That's not what we try to be about, that's not what we promote."
As for Alabama, they have no such singular star overshadowing the group. In Tuscaloosa, the sum of their parts creates a championship-caliber product, one that only malfunctioned once in 2012. Wide receiver Amari Cooper says that the team is not dwelling on their only loss last year. "It's really not a revenge thing. If you lose a fight with someone, you don't get revenge from fighting someone else," Cooper said.
His head coach, Nick Saban, has instilled that attitude in his players.
"It's never a part of our game," he said. "We tell our players, there's no circumstance where you need to talk to another player, and there's been very little of that with our team. Business-like is the way we'd like to approach this game. It's going to be emotional, don't get me wrong. And I'm not trying to minimize the importance when I use the term 'businesslike.' People who get emotional sometimes don't make the best decisions."
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