When Dennis Franchione decided after the 2004 season that we were going to become more of a run-based offense, he made the decision to go with a scheme based most closely on Rich Rodriguez's spread option scheme being run at West Virginia at the time. While the Aggies used some concepts of Urban Meyer's spread single-wing offense during 2004, in 2005 we went almost whole hog with Rodriguez's zone-read option spread offense. After Reggie McNeal was injured against Oklahoma, Stephen McGee came into the game, and ran the zone read-option scheme flawlessly, helping the Aggies roll up almost 300 yds rushing on the Sooners. The next game, against texas, McGee led a ground attack that featured two 100 yd rushers in the game as the texas was unable to slow A&M's running game, and forced to depend on their offense to outscore A&M. The zone read option scheme firmly entrenched, the Aggies went on to a 9-4 season in 2006, and a 7-6 season in 2007 before Franchione was fired.

The question remains, though: If we had stuck with Urban Meyer's single-wing spread offensive scheme, would McGee have been better served as a player? Rich Rodriguez's offense thrived on the talents of Pat White at QB; White is a superfast gazelle in the backfield who makes deciding who to tackle on the zone read a near impossibility when they had Steve Slaton or Noel Devine in the backfield, because every choice you made was the wrong one. McGee was a sufficiently mobile QB (second fastest 40 time for a QB at the NFL Combine with a 4.6) to run the zone read, but while White's game was speed, McGee's game was power. McGee was a battering ram while running the ball, never afraid to lower his shoulder to take on defenders. McGee's power running style would have fit much better in the Urban Meyer's spread single-wing scheme, with a running game based on the single-wing buck lateral series, than it did in Rodriguez's zone read-option scheme. The fact that McGee was able to succeed so well in a scheme that didn't take advantage of all of his talents is just a testament to his athleticism and his willingness ot sacrifice personal goals for his team.

When you add in the spread passing game of Meyer's offense, you can really see where McGee would shine. McGee played well in some mop-up duty in 2004, when we spread the field and passed the ball more. If he had been featured in an offensive scheme that allowed him to pass the ball in a balanced attack along with a power-running game, we might have spent the last few years hearing about how Tim Tebow is the next Stephen McGee.

Instead, we are just left wondering what might have been.