Things have gone quiet on the SEC expansion front in recent days.  While the league has worked behind the scenes to find a 14th member to possibly pair with Texas A&M, all chatter has been coming from the Big 12 side of things.

Commissioner Dan Beebe said he wants A&M to stay (while also suggesting that he might force the school’s hand with a deadline).  Big 12 mega-boosters like T. Boone Pickens have asked A&M to stay.  Panicked economists attached to Baylor University have cranked out numbers showing that if A&M leaves for the SEC, the entire state of Texas will go the way of the Roman Empire.  And even folks attached to the University of Texas have publicly stated that they desperately want the Aggies to stay put.

While all these statement have been bubbling up on the surface, Texas and ESPN have actually been back in the kitchen cooking up new plans for the Longhorn Network — the cable channel that started kickstarted A&M’s escape plans.

The NCAA ruled last week that high school games could not air on college or conference networks for fear that such broadcasts would give said school or league a recruiting advantage.  On Monday, the NCAA will discuss the matter further with representatives from multiple networks and multiple schools, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

But Texas and ESPN are already planning to get high schoolers onto the Longhorn Network in another way — highlights.  During a news conference yesterday, a representative for the network said that UT and ESPN plan to show high school football highlights on their co-owned channel.

In other words, “We really want you to stay, A&M… now how ya like these apples?”  In addition, it was announced that the network would carry two Big 12 games this season, another of the original sticking points for A&M.

Consider this to be passive-aggressive behavior on a collegiate level.  And the Longhorns’ actions are speaking a lot more loudly than their words.

In response to all of this, an Aggie official said only, “Our recent conversations are reflective of our ongoing concerns.”  Indeed.

If Beebe holds his league together this time around, he should know that it will be even more flawed and fractious than it has been for the past year.  Of course, if he can deadline A&M into staying, he also knows he can up the exit penalty by tens of millions of dollars before the Aggies actually do depart.

And they will depart.  It’s just a matter of when.

(Click the headline of the story to see the icon at left at full size.)

Whoa, Nellie.  This Texas A&M to the SEC talk is simply out of control at this point.  So much for 2010 being the Year of Expansion. 

Here’s what folks are saying this morning:


1.  Texas governor Rick Perry set off a new rush of chatter by telling The Dallas Morning News that “as far as I know, conversations are being had” between his alma mater — where he was once an Aggie yell leader — and the SEC.  But he also said, “I’ll be real honest with you… I just read about it the same time as y’all did.”  In other words, his statement is being taken as gospel when it probably shouldn’t be.

2.  A&M president R. Bowen Loftin is “committed to doing what is best for Texas A&M not only now, but also in the future,” according to a university release.

3.  Big 12 commish Dan Beebe says he’s taking reports of A&M-SEC talks “very seriously.”  He said, “Obviously there are a significant number of Aggie supporters who are interested in going in that direction.”

4.  The Houston Chronicle states that A&M already has one foot out the door of the Big 12. 

5.  Younger fans are pushing for a move to the SEC, but columnists like Jerome Solomon of The Chronicle say such a move would be a bad deal for A&M.

6.  A columnist for The Oklahoman says A&M to the SEC doesn’t make sense.

7.  Missouri — a school that we mentioned as a top candidate for expansion last summer when no one else was — is being mentioned more and more (now) as “an obvious candidate.”


So what’s changed since yesterday?  Nothing.  The governor of Texas said that he’d read the same stories everyone else had and his statement was then used as proof that A&M is knock, knock, knockin’ on the SEC’s door.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.

I think the deafening silence from Birmingham is still worth noticing.  Mike Slive’s operation rarely springs a leak, but if something this big were really thisclose to coming to fruition, you’d think some of the A&M-to-the-SEC chatter would be coming from the SEC side of things.  So far, all the talk has come from the Lone Star State.

Is A&M sick of Texas?  Yes.  Would A&M like to grab a few million more dollars per year by jumping to the SEC?  Of course.  But might they also be playing chicken with the Texas and ESPN?  Absolutely.

Last summer, A&M officials got cozy with Slive and then wound up getting a nice “please don’t leave us” payment that kept them in the Big 12.  It’s certainly possible that the Aggies are leaking SEC talk in the hopes of forcing Texas and ESPN to ease up on their Longhorn Network plans.  If the Big 12 blows up, ESPN would have to renegotiate a number of expensive television contracts — Texas as an independent, an SEC that would now reach huge Texas markets, whatever leagues catch the other Big 12 castoffs, etc.  So even if Texas wants to air high school games and put big Big 12 games on its network, ESPN could balk if it sees that doing so would be the lesser of two evils.

If you’re ESPN, would you rather rework multiple contracts — likely paying out bigger money for each — or simply limit some of your programming options on the Longhorn Network?

So it’s possible that A&M could simply be using the SEC for leverage.  If Texas and ESPN refuse to back down, then maybe a move to the SEC would be the best option for the Aggies.  If they do back down, once again A&M would get what it wants, would stay put, and would get a “win” over the Longhorns in the battle over their television channel.

For all we know, an A&M-SEC marriage announcement will appear in your morning paper tomorrow… no one from the SEC is talking.  But we at MrSEC.com still believe there’s still some negotiating to be done before the Aggies eventually land in the Souheastern Conference.

The rumored move of Texas A&M to the SEC has been a fun one to watch for those of us here at MrSEC.com.  A year ago, most pundits were projecting Clemson, Georgia Tech or Florida State to the Southeastern Conference.  A&M was viewed as a throw-in candidate only if the league could grab Texas.

We saw things differently.  In our multi-part series “Expounding on Expansion” — which was about 75 pages if printed out — we looked at expansion from a business sense, not from a fan perspective.

Despite the mutterings of the masses, we knew and stated the following:


1) Academics would play a big role in expansion.  (At the league’s spring meetings, we saw SEC presidents prove that football doesn’t rule the roost, despite the money it brings to league coffers.)  I recently spoke to someone who served in Penn State’s athletic department during that school’s move to the Big Ten.  In his view, academics absolutely drove the bus on that move.  Ignore the facts if you wish, but these are schools first and while football is a large part of the equation, it isn’t the only part of the equation.  (This piece on academics and politics includes a history lesson on A&M-SEC relations.  And here’s a conference-by-conference, school-by-school look at academics.)

2) Distance and travel wouldn’t be the end-all, be-all.  Most fans aren’t driving from Gainesville to Fayetteville now, yet the SEC hasn’t collapsed.  The Pac-12 stretches from Seattle to Tuscon.  The Big East reaches from New York to Chicago to Ft. Worth.  And the ACC’s footprint spreads from Boston to Miami.  It’s an atlas, not a Bible.  Don’t grow too attached to it.

3) The “South” has nothing to do with it.  “SEC” is a brand, not a definition.  The conference doesn’t have to look inside its own borders to expand.  The idea is outward growth — bringing in new TV markets, new recruiting ground, and new fans.  Interestingly, I recently read someone who pooh-poohed Missouri as a potential SEC candidate because the state is not football crazy and because it was a border state in the Civil War.  Egads.  I don’t guess that person realized that he’d just described Kentucky, as well.  (Here’s our take on why the SEC should act boldly on the expansion front.)


Last summer, we looked at 18 different schools as expansion candidates.  We graded them in several different areas: population base, academics, athletic budget, athletic success, location, etc, etc.  (Here’s a look at how we chose our criteria.)

You can read our reviews of each school here.  Pay close attention to our review of Texas A&M.

By the numbers, we found that A&M ranked behind only Texas in terms of being a great potential mate for Mike Slive’s league.

Even after Expansionpalooza wound down last June, we wrote in July that A&M to the SEC was just a matter of time.  And in January of this past year, we speculated that the Longhorn Network could provide the Aggies a final push eastward toward the SEC West.

Now it seems that the whole world is dancing to the “A&M to the SEC” beat.  Well, we say, “welcome.”  This story is no more clear today than it was 15 to 18 months ago when we first started writing about it, but at least a few more people are opening their eyes and recognizing that this marriage will eventually come to fruition.

Twitter exploded yesterday with unconfirmed reports that A&M and the SEC were already working out membership details and that the Aggies were prepping to give their Big 12 mates the news by the end of August.

Messageboards were filled with conspiracy theories.  OutkickTheCoverage.com bought into one — the idea that Texas has been forcing the likes of Nebraska and Colorado and Texas A&M to make moves with a flurry of DeLoss Dodd’s Jedi mind tricks.

All the talk meant A&M coach Mike Sherman had to dance around the SEC topic at practice yesterday.

We stated yesterday that our sources inside the SEC were mum on the subject.  For that reason, we didn’t buy into yesterday’s Twitterlanche. 

Turns out, Brent Zwerneman of The San Antonio Express-News and The Houston Chronicle poured some cold water on the hullaballoo courtesy of a “high-ranking A&M official” who said there will be “no imminent announcement or anything of that matter” anytime soon.


So here’s what everyone needs to keep in mind at this point:


1) Slive and Texas A&M officials came close to making a deal last summer — with help from A&M regent Gene Stallings.  The groundwork for a deal is in place, you can be sure.  So in all likelihood it wouldn’t take much for A&M to land in the SEC.

2) Slive wants no part of blowing up or breaking apart someone else’s league.  The SEC nabbed Arkansas from the SWC back in the day, but Slive and the current league presidents don’t want to go that route again.  Therefore…

3) The ball is in A&M’s court.  When the Big 12 finally breaks apart — and it will — the Aggies will call Slive and Slive will answer with a smile on his face.


That phone call isn’t coming anytime soon.  The Big 12 schools will try to hold together for now.  They will all experience life in a Longhorn Network world and then make their decisions as to how each wants to react.  When that happens, the Aggies will move to their right. 

But it’s going to take some time.

Mike Slive should just go ahead and pull the trigger.  After all, with rumors swirling of a potential Texas A&M move to the SEC we’re forced to cover the Aggies as though they are already the league’s 13th member.

As you know by now, Texas’ new partnership with ESPN — the Longhorn Network — has threatened to disturb the Big 12′s tenuous peace.  A&M and other league schools are worried about Texas using the network as a recruiting tool.  They’re also worried about UT putting league games on the network.

A&M officials stoked the flames of discontent yesterday during Big 12 Media Days in Dallas.  According to Jason King of Yahoo! Sports, Texas A&M would not allow Aggie football coach Mike Sherman to speak on camera with reporters from the Longhorn Network.

When asked to talk about his rival’s new toy, Sherman said: “I’m not talking about it.  I’m not talking about it.  I have enough on my plate getting my team ready to play.”

Yep.  That sounds like one big happy family.

Let’s get Day Three of SEC Media Days kicked off with some news and notes from around the league…


1.  Ivan Maisel of ESPN.com writes that the Cam Newton story just won’t go away… and that the court of public opinion will have the final say in the matter.

2.  Here are some highlights from Day Two of Media Days.

3.  Gene Chizik simply said, “Oh, Danny Sheridan… there you are,” when he ran into the accusatory oddsmaker in Hoover.

4.  There are still a lot of questions for Auburn’s Tigers.

5.  LSU’s Russell Shepard will miss Media Days today for “personal reasons,” and the school says he has not been suspended.

6.  Georgia’s Mark Richt validated Boise State yesterday.

7.  Now he needs to beat the Broncos to right UGA’s ship.

8.  Andy Staples of SI.com says the Longhorn Network is setting off “another Big 12 Missile Crisis”… and that a large chunk of the Texas A&M fanbase wants to move to the SEC.

9.  Aggie AD Bill Byrne commented on Texas’ TV network yesterday.

10.  Auburn tipsters have led OutkickTheCoverage.com to a possible Alabama rules violation involving star tailback Trent Richardson.

11.  There will be no entertaining monologue from Robbie Caldwell this year and that’s just fine with him.

12.  Crazy, but true: For just $12,000 Florida fans can by themselves a Tim Tebow statue.

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:

The new Longhorn Network — a partnership between ESPN and the University of Texas — will create a $300 million windfall for the Texas athletic department over the next 20 years.  You’d think that would be the worst of it for Texas’ Big 12 rivals.

You would be wrong.

When the deal for the network was announced, one small part of the press release caught the attention of the people at Texas A&M.  It seems the Longhorn Network plans to carry some high school games in addition to all those many hours of Texas’ football, basketball, baseball, tic-tac-toe, badminton, and cross-country ballroom dancing. 

Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne — no doubt speaking for every other person attached to a Big 12 school not located in Austin — believes the NCAA might want to take a look into those plans.

“I can’t speak for the NCAA, but I would imagine the governing body will look into the use of a collegiate television network airing games of prospective student-athletes,” Byrne said.  “I understand networks such as FSN and ESPN airing high school sports, but whether or not employees under contract with a university that may have additional contact would seem to be an issue.”

Yes.  A huge issue.

Let’s say Mack Brown spots a high school running back out of College Station that he likes.  He tells the folks with the Longhorn Network of his interest.  All of a sudden, said prospect’s high school games are picked up and aired by the official University of Texas sports channel.  A recruiting advantage for Texas?  You bet.

No one in the Big 12 trusts one another after the backdoor dealings, backstabs, and attempted double-crosses of last summer.  So launching Texas’ new network is akin to pouring gasoline on a fire.  Sooner or later — probably sooner — the Big 12 is going to go up in flames.

When it does, expect A&M and possibly Oklahoma to call Mike Slive in hopes of finding new living arrangements.

The rich are getting richer in college sports.

In a move that will cause seismic quakes across the landscape of college athletics (and future conference expansion plans), the University of Texas and ESPN have finally reached an agreement in their efforts to build a television network geared exclusively toward Longhorn sports.

Texas will make $300 million over the course of its 20-year deal with ESPN and its new Longhorn Network will be the first of its kind.  Think Big Ten Network (which is a partnership between that conference and Fox) but with one school earning all the proceeds.

Texas is an IMG school and once that group’s multimedia rights fees are sliced out, the Longhorns should receive about $15 million per year in new revenue.  That’s on top of its existing “biggest piece of the pie” cut from Big 12 revenues.  Which has already helped Texas fund the biggest sports budget in the country for 2010-11.

With this kind of financial advantage — plus a great recruiting base, tremendous facilities, and a history of winning — SEC fans had better get used to seeing Texas in BCS bowls and Final Fours.  The Longhorns are about to become uber-rich… which should help them to become even stronger in athletics.  If that’s possible.

On another front, Texas was very much at the heart of 2010′s conference expansion talks.  The Big 12 nearly broke apart because the have-nots in that league were sick of being controlled (and out-spent) by the one very big have down in the Lone Star State.

The Pac-10 almost expanded to 16 teams in order to land the Horns.  The Big Ten also flirted with Bevo and company.  This summer was all about Texas.  And now Texas has even more power.

At some point the Big 12 will finally come apart.  When that happens, every league out there will race to land the Longhorns.  But Texas will have the power to demand whatever it likes from its new partners, thus setting up a new conference that will face the same revenue-sharing issues that have plagued the Big 12.

In other words, everyone will want Texas because they’re so rich and powerful.  But landing Texas might actually be a bad thing in the long haul… because they’re so rich and powerful.