Just a quick catch-up on what’s happening on the Texas A&M/Baylor/SEC front today:

This morning, AggieYell.com — the Rivals site covering Texas A&M — reported that a source had told the website that Baylor was “going to move on” without taking legal action against the SEC.

Cheers went up in College Station.

But then Chuck Carlton of The Dallas Morning News tweeted the following:

“Big 12 school source said reports today that Baylor has agreed not to sue SEC are inaccurate.  ‘Completely false,’ the source said.”

And with that, groans could be heard in College Station.

Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin has since released the following statement:

“We are certainly pleased with the action taken last night by the presidents and chancellors of the Southeastern Conference to unanimously accept Texas A&M as the league’s 13th member.  However, this acceptance is conditional, and we are disappointed in the threats made by one of the Big 12 member institutions to coerce Texas A&M into staying in Big 12 Conference.  These actions go against the commitment that was made by this university and the Big 12 on Sept. 2.  We are working diligently to resolve any and all issues as outlined by the SEC.”

Remember how we’ve been saying for weeks that things won’t be final until they are final?  That anything could happen?  That all those reports of a “done deal” won’t mean anything until the deal is — ya know — actually done?  Wel this is exactly the kind of nonsense we’ve been expecting.

And should it really come as a shock that Baylor president Kenneth Starr — unable to proactively draw any interest from other leagues in his university — has decided to take a “by any means necessary” approach?  After all, when he was unable to find any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Bill Clinton in the Whitewater mess, he instead trotted out a semen-stained dress.  Like Clinton or dislike Clinton, Starr showed 15 years ago that he would go to any lengths to achieve his goal.  So a lawsuit coming from this guy — in an attempt to impede an entire system on the verge of evolving — shouldn’t surprise a soul.

Oh, boy.  It looks like it’s gonna be one of those days.

Yesterday, trusting the Texas-based site Orangebloods.com, we linked to a report from that Rivals site stating that Texas A&M sources had said yesterday that the school would withdraw from the Big 12 today.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that A&M had already given a phoned departure notice to Brady Deaton, the chairman of the Big 12 board.  The NYT report claimed that “two college officials with direct knowledge of the decision” had tipped the paper.

A&M has denied that report this morning.

We still await official word from College Station.  Since both Texas A&M and the Big 12 offices are based in the Lone Star State, we’ll continue to give extra credence to Texas-based reports… as we did late last night/early this morning. 

Which is why we’re one of the few sites not having to backtrack this morning.

With rumors flying in College Station that Texas A&M isn’t happy, a possible Aggie move to the SEC has been all the talk in recent weeks.  Naturally, Mike Slive was asked about expansion today and Jon Solomon of The Birmingham News tweeted the commissioner’s response:


“I’m going to think about and do things that are in the long-term best interests of the SEC.  We’re going to continue to be strategic and thoughtful.  I’m going to leave it at that.”


Ah, so it seems we can sum up Slive’s expansion plan in one word…

If the Big 12 is the camel’s back, then Texas’ new Longhorn Network is looking more and more like it could be the straw that breaks it.

As we noted last week, reports out of College Station have officials at Texas A&M worried and concerned about their rivals’ $300 million soon-to-be-launched television network.  They’re worried that it could provide a recruiting advantage for UT.  They’re concerned that their fans might some day have to actually subscribe to the thing just to catch the Horns and Aggies play ball (though there’s a slim chance of that ever happening).

Texas A&M’s board of regents has actually added the Longhorn Network to the agenda of its regularly scheduled board meeting at the end of the week.  That news — naturally — led many to believe that A&M had called a meeting to talk about a planned move to the SEC.  Not so. 


Repeat after us:

1.  Texas A&M will someday join the SEC.

2.  That day is not in the immediate future.


The Houston Chronicle reports that an “insider” says A&M is still committed to making a 10-team Big 12 work and that “the threat of a potential move to the Southeastern Conference is not in the immediate future.” 

In other words, just calm down on the expansion talk.  As we’ve been saying for two years now, the A&M-SEC flirtations have gone on since the 1980s and the days of ADs John David Crow and Joe Dean.  When push came to shove last year, Mike Slive’s private plane touched down in College Station.  And the majority of Aggie fans are now gung-ho for a move east.  See point 1 — this will happen.  Someday.

But someday could be a year, two years, five years or 10 years down the road.  (Based on the economics of college athletics and the ridiculous level of distrust that already exists among Big 12 schools, we’d put our marker somewhere between the two and five year points.)  This is not something that can or will happen on a whim.  And even if A&M were ready to jump ASAP, Slive made it clear last summer that the SEC wasn’t interested in raiding a stable league.  If the Big 12 broke apart, then A&M and Oklahoma had invitations to land in the Southeastern Conference.  For now, however, the Big 12 is still somewhat stable.  If you consider this stable: