http://www.expressnews.com/sports/co...d91ad639a20598
When it comes to Aggies, Horns and the Big 12, revenge appears to be a dish best served cold.A new look at the fallout of Texas A&M leaving the Big 12 for the SEC shows that former Longhorns athletic director DeLoss Dodds was half-right about A&M, but not in a good way.
The Aggies are flying high, undefeated and ranked No. 6, their best season in years. Dodds thought A&M would crash and burn in the SEC. Far from it. In fact, A&M is making it rain money in College Station.
But Dodds nailed it when he suggested A&M’s departure would allow SEC teams to ford the Sabine River and raid the Lone Star State of talent. If talent matters, the Big 12 is dangerously close to not mattering on the national football landscape. A do ent leaked last week, researched and compiled by a school outside of the conference, shows precisely why the league is dying. In 2010, the Big 12 signed 41 of the state’s top 50 players. The SEC landed only three. A&M jumped ship in 2012, and SEC signings in Texas have increased since then. This year, for example, the Big 12 was able to sign 22 of the top 50. The SEC, however, signed 20. A&M only got six.
Regarding Texas blue chips, to paraphrase Leon Black from “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” the Aggies are getting theirs. And by letting the SEC in, they are crippling the Big 12 and the school they blamed for their departure.
Fans of Big 12 teams can take some solace in the way A&M has struggled to be relevant in SEC football. Despite that, the SEC move had been the school’s best decision since that year it set up camp in Junction.
Wait. Do you think football is about wins and loses? Please.
The Aggies may have struggled to semi-relevance on a regional stage with a 17-15 SEC football record to date. But the school has lined its pockets with cash, thanks to the league’s proprietary mint, er, television network.
In 2013, A&M and other SEC members earned $21 million. Last season, that went up to $31.2 million. Next year, the Aggies and their pals will each pocket $44.5 million, which would pay for 44,000 pairs of Aggie senior boots.
With the windfall, the school has been able to drop a half-billion on facilities now considered among the nation’s best. Home-game attendance has been north of 100,000 since Kyle Field was expanded. More importantly, at least regarding sibling schadenfreude, the Big 12 is hurting. Already the weakest of the “Power Five” conferences, the league is hemorrhaging fans, wins, TV ratings and respect.
All of that is leading to speculation it won’t survive the next wave of conference realignment. If things start to look sketchy, Oklahoma and Texas will bolt, though politics may force UT to drag along Baylor and Texas Tech on the way out. And with that, the Big 12 is over. Alternately, the Big 12 could embrace and expand its bland (not a typo). The first step would be to stop treating schools such as Rice, SMU, UTEP, UTSA, Houston and Tulane as if they have head lice and realize the collegiate playing field is a lot more level than it was 10 years ago. Who am I kidding? The Big Cigars at Texas and Oklahoma will go down with the ship, even if the ship is a dinghy and even if the cigars are $2 Travis Club Senators Especiales Maduros before they take UH seriously. When the league tanks, fans and scribes will point to various factors behind its fall from grace such as bad hires, bad recruiting and, in all likelihood, bad news coverage.
In reality, the real blame (or credit, if you bleed maroon) should be laid at the senior-boot-clad feet of Texas A&M, which took the money, ran and let the infidels through the gates, er, over the Sabine River bridge. The proof is in the blue chips.
Yeah, the aggies are making a little more in the SEC than they would if they'd have stayed in the b12 but it comes at the price of being the third or 4th best team in the sec west and settling for chick fil a bowls every year.
Had they stayed, they'd be ranked #1 or #2 in the country with yearly trips to the playoffs.
Stupid aggies, but the the B12 was already hurting before they left.
Not one mention of the Longhorn Network which is the real poison her.
Stupid article.
ESPN KILLED THE BIG 12
I've never seen a more delusional, self-important program than Aggy. What hurt the Big 12 was losing an actually important and relevant program: Nebraska. Aggy's just trying to claim "victory," even though they're still equally as mediocre as they were in the Big 12.
Yeah. I concur losing Nebraska was way worse than losing aggy.
In the mid-late 2000s when the Big 12 was arguably the best conference in the country, A&M was an irrelevant doormat.
TCU has picked up their slack and then some.
Just a ridiculous article.
Oh yeah, the b12 TV deals run through 2025. That's a pretty slow death.
Nebraska and Missouri were in the Big 12 in 2010, which accounts for a lot of the recruiting numbers. Aggies and their fans think they're far more important than they are. I wrongly predicted that they'd fail in the SEC, but at the time I thought the conference was actually as good as the rankings indicated.
they're looking good but still haven't won anything yet in the SEC.
The only thing killing the Big 12 is a lack of great coaching at the top schools. Put Urban Meyer at Texas and Jim harbaugh at Oklahoma and suddenly the Big 12 is back.
It wasn't long ago that the Big 10 was sucking hind , now there is all this talk of how great they are blah blah blah.
It's all about coaching, the ass wipe who wrote that has probably been dying to write that BS for 4 years, but the truth is still staring him in the face. Aggsy still haven't done in the SEC.
Nebraska was one of the two monsters in the Big 8.
They really fell off the map when we entered and Osborne left. When we had a mediocre team beat them at home for the first time in like 33 games... Slap in the face. They slowly died in the Big 12 and have yet to recover.
And no team would have turned down the ESPN offer at the time.
Last edited by pgardn; 10-12-2016 at 08:57 PM.
Pretty much.
Ohio St. fans loved their grind it out Tressel. They hated Meyer at Florida, especially after he gave them a bowl butt kicking. Now they see what an offense can look like without a hint of a defensive falloff. What? What? They love him now. Michigan is still a work in progress, but it's looking awfully good.
They are extraordinarily loyal fans... For a team that has a very poor history. It's like the Cubs, but militarized and way serious.
They also travel very well. You know they will be in your face losers so it was a good pick up as SEC fodder.
I miss playing them. They took losing to us so very hard. It was fun.
I was actually grateful that Urb didn't run it up in that le game. If he had wanted to keep his foot on the pedal it could have easily ended up 55-14 or 62-14 instead of 41-14. But yeah, it isn't even the same sport between Tressel and Urb, much as I liked and continued to like "the Senator."
Texas A&M has only had one "great" season in the last decade, obviously that was in 2012. They really aren't all that for any conference, in the Kevin Sumlin era they have lost 16 games, that is nothing special. To think they killed anything or resurrected anythng, nay~~~~~~~
That's not true. Aggy has had only one team capable of winning the Big 12 since they left and that was in Manziel's first year. The other teams since haven't been good enough to beat the likes of OU, TCU, Baylor, and Okie St during that time.
That's probably true.
But all things being equal, their odds of reaching the playoffs would have increased greatly by staying put.
They are extraordinarily preoccupied with UT. Both schools are so money-hungry that they'll start playing each other again soon enough. UT should probably be relieved that they've managed to avoid the Aggies the last few years.
Stop posting like a coward and log in to your main, Designated T.
Who is the guy behind the "Texas A&M quietly moving up" thread? Sisk?
nah, shiner has been here awhile
Who is the guy behind the "Texas A&M quietly moving up" thread? Sisk?
So when will the "College GameDay Appearance Champions" banner be raised at Pyle Field?
LOL
So now we rate conferences and teams by game day appearences? I'm sure Bama had nothing to do with it.
BTW the beauty of owning your own ESPN network is you get Game Day every week.
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