Where I Come From: All-Time Favorite Aggie Football Players

This is the fourth post in a week-long series sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011.

When discussing your fandom of a team and school with any other fans, the topic of all-time favorite players is one that invariably comes up, because we all have players who make it more exciting for us to watch our favorite team. Since I've been a fan of the Aggies for a while, I have more than one favorite player, so today I'm going to talk about a few of them.

Jorvorskie Lane: The "J-Train", from Lufkin, TX, was a player I had been watching even before he stepped on campus; the first time I saw him play was in high school, when an undefeated Lufkin team played undefeated and defending state champion Southlake Carroll in the playoffs at Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco. John Outlaw, the Lufkin head coach, foolishly chose to try to go head-to-head with Carroll's spread offense, which ended with Lufkin trailing at halftime. In the second half, Lufkin came out with Lane playing QB, they direct-snapped the ball to him, he'd barrel forward, and they were gaining 6-8 yards at a clip. The game ended with Lufkin coming up just short, and Carroll advancing on to another undefeated season and a state championship, but I remember marveling how Outlaw didn't take advantage of the significant size advantage he had over the Carroll defense, and begin pounding the ball with the power-running game to Lane in the first half; if they had, there is no doubt in my mind Lane would have come to A&M with a state championship to his credit. Lane saw the first action of his career in his freshman year against SMU, carrying the ball 10 times for 54 yards and a TD in a 66-8 blowout win, and the legend began. Lane was an instant fan-favorite with his power-running style and ability to get the tough yards for first down on third and short and fourth and short. There was something fun about everyone in the stadium knowing who was going to get the ball on short yardage, and yet the opposing defense was never able to stop him.  Lane broke 100 yards rushing twice in his freshman year, against Oklahoma State and against texas, when we went to an option running attack full-time. Lane was often the inside zone portion of the zone read option offensive attack we moved to at the end of 2005 against Oklahoma, and continued until the end of the 2007 season, and teams struggled to contain him. If you didn't respect the inside zone, Lane would repeatedly gash you up the middle, and if you focused on stopping the zone, Stephen McGee and Mike Goodson would shred you with the option outside. During the 2006 season, Lane tied a school record, rushing for 19 TDs, including a career-high four against Louisiana-Lafayette. I have always contended that Franchione never fully utilized Lane's talents, because he was an adept receiver out of the backfield. Along with Franchione's inability to fully integrate the spread passing game into the zone read option offense, it was my one big complaint about Fran's offense. During his senior season, Coach Sherman moved Lane from tailback to fullback, a move Lane never fully embraced. During what was essentially a lost season for Lane and the team, Lane only gained 93 yards rushing the whole year, but he did set the career rushing TD record for A&M at 49. Lane left A&M as the best powerback in our school's history, in my opinion; it is just a shame he wasn't able to control his weight better his senior season, and integrate himself into his new role as a fullback.

Jason Glenn: Glenn came to A&M as an All-American safety out of high school, but he eventually bulked up and we moved him to OLB in his sophomore year, where he came a pass rushing terror. I still contend that if he hadn't been injured in the OU game in 2000, we win that game, and Bob Stoops is still looking for his first national championship. Despite the season-ending injury, Glenn still finished the year third on the team in tackles, compiling 67 tackles, 16 TFL, 5 sacks, 15 passes defended, 3 interceptions, and 4 QBH. Glenn was a playmaker on the field, and team leader and spokesman off the field; often charming and glib, the media loved him. I remember the sportswriters in attendance giving him a standing ovation after he left the podium following the 2000 OU game. I will always remember Glenn's performance in A&M's upset win over Kansas State in 2000 as one of the best performances I've ever seen from an OLB.

NG/DE Ty Warren, DE Rocky Bernard, OLB Jarrod Penright, OLB Christian Rodriguez: I realize this is more than one player, but the 2001 Aggie defense, the last true Wrecking Crew defense in my mind, has always held a special place in my heart. Warren, Bernard, Penright, and C-Rod were just a few of a the great players on that team; we also had Sammy Davis at CB and Terrence Kiel at safety, Harold Robertson, Brian Gamble, Amon Simon, Jarred Morris were all ILBs on that squad. Byron Jones, Sean Weston, and "Big Play" Jay Brooks were in the secondary. We were simply loaded with talent on our defense that year, and it all started up front. Offensive teams had a dilemma: If you double-teamed Warren at NG, which you needed to do because no one could handle him one-on-one, and double-teamed Bernard at DE, because you couldn't block him one-on-one, either, you now had four players blocking two, which meant you had two players left to try to block Jarrod Penright, Christian Rodriguez, and Evan Perroni (or Linnis Smith). The math simply didn't work, so someone was coming free. If you tried to run away from Warren and Bernard, you'd run right into Rodriguez; if you tried to run outside of Warren and Bernard, you ran right into Penright, which was an even scarier proposition. There really was no way for opposing offenses to win. Bernard had 69 tackles, 15 TFL, and 5 sacks on the season; Penright had 66 tackles, 19 TFL, and 10.5 sacks on the year; how he didn't make All-American that year is still a mystery to me. Our defense held opponents to an average of 18.5 points per game. Unfortunately, as great as our defense was, our offense was equally as bad. Offensive coordinator Dino Babers simply choked all signs of life out of our offense; we averaged 305 yards of total offense, and 20 points per game. Yes, you read that right. With such a weak offense, opposing teams just had to keep our defense on the field and try to tire them out, and enough teams did that for us to lose four games that season. We did manage to bludgeon TCU to death with our defense, as Byron Jones had three interceptions in his first career start, and the Aggies prevailed 28-9 in our last bowl win to date. The 2001 defense still remains one of my favorite collections of Aggies of all-time.

Who is your favorite Aggie football player of all-time?