June 10, 201016 yr I guess anything is possible, but I just can't see A&M doing anything without Texas. They are big time rivals, but really they are tied at the hip in everything they do. I'm not even sure the state legislature would allow A&M to choose the opposite of Texas. Now if the Pac-10 were to invite the Horns but not the Aggies, then who knows.
June 10, 201016 yr I'm not even sure the state legislature would allow A&M to choose the opposite of Texas. :thumb:
June 10, 201016 yr Author From an early article by Chip Brown who has been all over the expansion story. There does appear to be some resistance to an invitation from the Pac-10 from at least one of the six schools being targeted - Texas A&M. According to a source close to the situation, A&M officials have had serious conversations with the Southeastern Conference about the Aggies joining that league. In Thursday's editions of the Houston Chronicle, A&M athletic director Bill Byrne was asked if the SEC is an option for the Aggies should the Big 12 break up, and he said, "It might be. You know what? It might be." Byrne, the athletic director at Oregon from 1984-92 before going to Nebraska, has been openly critical of having student-athletes travel west, only to return home at odd hours. Byrne has used the example of when the Aggies had their men's and women's basketball teams in Spokane and Seattle for the NCAA Tournament in March and couldn't get back to College Station until 6:30 a.m. with students having to attend 8 a.m. classes. It's no coincidence Byrne's example included cities in the Pac-10's dominant time zone. There is also reason to believe Oklahoma could be enamored with joining the SEC. But that does not appear to be an option Texas officials would be willing to consider. There is a sense among UT officials the academics in the SEC are not on par with Texas. If A&M and Oklahoma were to splinter off and join the SEC, the Pac-10 would obviously have to revise its invite list. Any move the SEC made in terms of expansion would likely cause the 15-year, $3 billion in TV contracts the SEC landed with ABC/ESPN ($2.2 billion) and CBS ($825 million) to be re-opened for negotiation. The question would be how much more money the SEC could command in TV revenue without starting its own network? A&M is starved for cash because its athletic department fell $16 million into debt and received a loan from the school's general fund to pay it off, causing a rift between the university and athletics. That rift, in part, led to A&M school president Elsa Murano to resign under pressure because she was pushing for the money to be paid back and was met with resistance by A&M system chancellor Mike McKinney, whose sons played football at A&M, and possibly even Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an Aggie who is still very involved in the school's politics. Surprisingly, the Legislature doesn't appear to be an obstacle for the state's two biggest schools to split off into separate conferences, although that is not an ideal situation for either school. If A&M opted to head to the SEC and Texas opted to go elsewhere, there is a very good chance Texas would no longer play the Aggies in any sports.
June 10, 201016 yr Author Just a thought, but could the TX legislature just be concerned with making sure their teams land in a good spot--and less concerned with keeping them together? It makes sense that they would use their most powerful piece (Texas) to insure bids for the others into the Pac 16. But if an SEC bid was more alluring for A&M (which there seems to be some sentiment that it might be) then I think they would step out of the way as long as A&M landed on their feet in a big time conference.
June 10, 201016 yr I heard that Gov Perry is an A&M grad and will put pressure on them to not go anywhere without UT.
June 10, 201016 yr From an early article by Chip Brown who has been all over the expansion story. I believe it was Chip Brown I heard on Gottlieb yesterday say that A&M talked to the SEC only to make one of their money boosters happy. That was probalby no real chance of them going with the SEC.
June 10, 201016 yr Would love to see them both in the SEC along with FSU and Clemson. No chance in the world that Texas comes to the SEC.
June 11, 201016 yr According to Orangebloods, who is a Texas Longhorns website, A&M is in talks with the SEC about a move to the west division and bringing Virginia Tech to balance out the East.
June 11, 201016 yr Personally, if conferences like the Pac 10 and the Big 10 move to 16 teams, I think a whole re-alignment is in order for ALL conferences to insure relative proximity of schools to each other. That means some teans from conferences like the ACC, Big East, etc would be moved around so as to allow the carving up of the Big 12 to be relatively close to the conferences they commit too. For example, I could see the Big 10 engulfing schools like Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri into their own and allowing a team like Penn State to move more toward an East Coast conference like the ACC or Big East. Personally, if the SEC expands to 16 teams, I'd like to see them try and grab schools that are truly from the South and the fans consider themselves southerners. Many Texas fans don't truly feel that way and many don't want to join the SEC because they don't really think they apart of that type of niche like the SEC teams have. Many would rather join the Pac 10 as they feel a bit more "West Coast-ish". My personal list of teams that I'd like the SEC to pursue to meet the quota of 16 teams are Clemson, Miami (FL), Florida State, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, and Virginia. I'm tempted to include West Virginia in there but I find many of their fans are split over a possible move to the SEC. Yet again, this is just my personal list. Edited June 11, 201016 yr by Texas Leaguer
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