Realignment Heats Back Up!!
By osbeaver
News broke today that A&M administration is seeing the light and is much more open to seriously considering and falling in line with a potential standing offer from the SEC who as recently as this spring stated A&M was their top choice. They may already also have Clemson on board.
What remains to be seen is if the SEC would just go for 14 at first to renogotiate their TV contract and then have clauses that allow for 16 or if they would start working on the 16 quickly once they had 14 locked in. If they did I expect another run at Oklahoma who on our recent polls here was the clear #1 choice for a Pac-16. Whether or not Texas would go indy or join us for the clout of one of the premier superconferences and its higher academic profile also is uncertain. I still am convinced Scott would like Texas and I also think they are worth the risk so we have a real super power conference that honestly couldn’t be better balanced with a SEC with A&M.
There would be potential for a nonconference matchup between Texas and A&M that would be great bragging rights for the victorious conference and alot of fun. It could be played annually or maybe every other year if they want to build it up even more. With A&M very much warming up to the idea of joining the SEC, do we just let them go and help spur along superconferences and get it done with ASAP or do we counter offer? These articles make it sound like their heart is on the SEC and with their location in eastern Texas it is logical.
I say lets focus on bringing the same 4 that almost came before..Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma St. A&M will just present too many ifs. I am afraid if we don’t push for Texas or get them Oklahoma will have a tougher decision between us and the SEC and we could lose our top pick in the Sooners. That would be bad, so going for Texas makes sense. Whether the Oklahoma schools would come with say Kansas and Texas Tech would be debateable. It would not be the preference of Oklahoma and a big paycheck would be required. That said I think we are as close as we have been since last June as far as superconferences. The SEC wants to strike first but really what needs to happen is Larry Scott working with the major powers and having a good negotiated result in place that assures the Pac-16, SEC and Big Ten are the Big 3 and will stay that way. For us, that better include Oklahoma!