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Aggies WR Mike Evans Named 'Top Receiver' in Program History by TexAgs

Mike Evans played just two seasons for the Aggies, but what he did during that time was something the program had never seen before, which is likely the reason for his No. 1 ranking.

Matt Guzman

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It's been a while since the Texas A&M Aggies have had a truly dominant passing game. 

Netflix is set to uncover more about former star quarterback Johnny Manziel — the last Aggie quarterback to display the level of dominance that programs like Alabama and Georgia are used to — with its new "Untold" series, but while that'll focus on "Johnny Football" and his rise to the top of the Texas A&M football totem pole, he had a partner in crime. 

Mike Evans, Manziel's top target, sported No. 13 for the two seasons he spent in College Station, and easily would have broken nearly every receiving record had he stayed for his full collegiate career. Instead, Evans went pro, where he's spent the last nine seasons as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer. 

Despite his shortened Aggie career, Evans found a great deal of success with the Aggies — setting a mark of excellence that may be hard to ever surpass — which was enough to earn him the top spot on TexAgs' all-time ranking of Texas A&M receivers. 

"He’s the gold standard that all other Aggie receivers are measured," David Sandhop wrote of Evans. "When pregame highlights scroll on the Kyle Field video board that chronicles the best plays in school history, Evans is there. ... he's the pass-catching G.O.A.T." 

It's true. It'd be hard to find any compilation of Aggie highlights without the Manziel-Evans duo. One wouldn't have been as successful without the other, but that didn't make either of their talents any less special.

By time Evans' career with the Aggies was finished, he had amassed 2,499 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns — both figures enough to land him in the top-10 in school history. The level of dominance he had, especially on long routes, only continued in the NFL. 

Evans is the only receiver in league history to begin his career with nine 1,000-yard seasons, most recently becoming a top target for Tom Brady in Tampa Bay. His level of consistency is one of his best traits, in fact, which only makes the thought of him staying at A&M that much scarier, especially as he continued to develop. 

That may not have been the case for the now-veteran receiver, but maybe that's not how it was supposed to be. Evans was special in his own way, with and without Manziel. That's not being discredited, nor forgotten. 

After all, he is topping an all-time list of receivers after playing just two seasons. 

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Matt Guzman
MATT GUZMAN

Matt Guzman is a sports journalist and storyteller from Austin, Texas. He serves as a credentialed reporter and site manager for San Antonio Spurs On SI and a staff writer for multiple collegiate sites in the same network. In the world of professional sports, he is a firm believer that athletes are people, too, and intends to tell stories of players and teams’ true, behind-the-scenes character that otherwise would not be seen through strong narrative writing, hooking ledes and passionate words.

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