No invite per Florida AD.
ESPN is ridiculous.
Edit: M_M beat me.
I disagree. Joining the SEC could be the magic tipping point for A&M. They’re in one of the top recruiting hot beds [texas] in the entire country. But a staggeringly low number of recruits leave the state to join the SEC (according to numbers I’ve heard on the radio at least). Texas A&M competes with the almighty Texas to get recruits. Now they can say to recruits “hey, you can stay close to home and play in the best football league in the entire nation”.[/quote]
That’s the Kool-Aid that they are serving their fans, but if they can’t sell recruits on playing Texas and Oklahoma each season, I don’t see how simply going to the SEC is going to improve recruiting. It may be a better conference now with all the defections from the Big XII, but they would have taken two huge rivals off of the schedule if that move is made. I’m sure many of their recruits and current players would not be liking that.
Now that the move appears to be off again, I wonder who nixed this. No way that this much chatter was made up. Somebody stepped in and kiboshed the deal. Just wonder which party did so, or if a 3rd party ended the deal.
Why are you anti-conf changes? IMO we NEED this to happen for us to land somewhere decent. You seem to be of the mind that that is not the case. Are you just thinking the timing of it? Or do you think any changes are bad for us?[/quote]
I think if the SEC goes to 16 teams, you’ll see the rest of the conferences follow suit and possibly form a new division. Either 4 conferences making 64 total teams or 5 conferences making 80 teams. If it happens today we won’t even be on the radar.
I agree conference shake ups is what we ultimately need to happen. But only when we have a FBS ready team. If this was happening 5 years from now I’d be more excited about it.[/quote]
Got ya - thanks! I agree that If they break away it could be VERY bad for us. I also think though if they do that and start basically locking teams out of the chance at a title the government will step in.64 or 80 teams - there will be some programs on the rise and some historical programs that will get left out.[/quote]
I would hope the government would step in. But the only guy that I am aware of, Senator Hatch, is probably no longer concerned about it since Utah is now in the Pac10. He probably considers his job accomplished.
They would leave out some good programs but they already do that with the BCS.[/quote]
Well that is true, but I do think that if there was a breakaway group there would be a large number of state schools with elected officials that would take great issue with it. Right now a school like San Diego St still has a shot - a small one, but they still have it. If schools break from the NCAA they wouldn’t have a shot at all. There would be a massive call for government intervention.
Sen. Hatch might still want to watch after Utah St & BYU. If not, what about Senators from HI, ID, or even Reps. Myrick & Watt? If Charlotte got Myrick & Watt to do a bi-partisan block, we could come out pretty good.
Not gonna happen.
If they had that kind of clout, we’d be having tentative talks with the ACC for the future of our football program.
Not gonna happen.
If they had that kind of clout, we’d be having tentative talks with the ACC for the future of our football program.[/quote]
Watt is a UNC-CH alum. Even with the clout, there’s no way he’s helping us out. Myrick probably pays no attention to sports.
Not gonna happen.
If they had that kind of clout, we’d be having tentative talks with the ACC for the future of our football program.[/quote]
Watt is a UNC-CH alum. Even with the clout, there’s no way he’s helping us out. Myrick probably pays no attention to sports.[/quote]
I think Sue’s son went to Charlotte.
It sounds like Slive was for it and was the one talking to A&M’s president. But when the president’s from all of the SEC schools met, they voted not to expand. That doesn’t really answer “why” though. I am curious to know that.
[quote=“X-49er, post:82, topic:25611”]That’s the Kool-Aid that they are serving their fans, but if they can’t sell recruits on playing Texas and Oklahoma each season, I don’t see how simply going to the SEC is going to improve recruiting. It may be a better conference now with all the defections from the Big XII, but they would have taken two huge rivals off of the schedule if that move is made. I’m sure many of their recruits and current players would not be liking that.
Now that the move appears to be off again, I wonder who nixed this. No way that this much chatter was made up. Somebody stepped in and kiboshed the deal. Just wonder which party did so, or if a 3rd party ended the deal.[/quote]
I get what you’re saying, but 5 consecutive national championships is pretty enticing. In the Big XII you have 2 big games [used to be 3 with Neb], in the SEC almost every week is a big game.
Apparently it’s not a rejection just yet. See this: http://blog.chron.com/aggies/2011/08/legal-maneuvering-at-hand-in-aggies-plans-for-sec/
Oklahoma isn’t really a rival for Texas A&M. A big game, but one fairly easily replaced with playing SEC teams that would be huge draws for most recruits, even those in Texas. Texas is a “rival”, but the Aggies clearly are thinking that the rivalry is about to be even more lopsided than it has been recently with a real possibility that Texas will eventually screw them and go independent. What’s the benefit to recruiting and fan support if you lose to your so-called “rival” every year until they eventually leave you stuck in a CUSA caliber football conference?
Not that any of that matters. This is about money over the short and long term. Lots of it, for both Texas A&M and the SEC.
DING DING!
Per Sportscenter, SEC is “catching its breath” after “things have gone so fast”. Made it very clear that conversations are not over and that it could happen in the near future. I’ve read the SEC presidents are meeting again Wednesday. That would allow for them to have had a meeting yesterday, take home some info to study and think about, meet again Wednesday to decide.
My gut says ESPN and others playing this down to keep it in the news.
I think it’s as ssimple as all this was moving to fast for the SEC.
13 teams is not good for the SEC. They need a 14th team and no one is going to move as fast to the SEC as A and M wanted to.
I’ll bet in a week or so after they’ve contacted a couple of schools and received positive results, this will be revisited and there will be movement.
well, looks like this is happening now. A&M has begun seceeding from the Big XII-2. I hope there’s some delay, because I don’t think we’re going to be ready soon enough.
What do you mean “soon enough”?
Conference expansion at this point is about potential and TV markets. We already have plans for a bigger stadium and only need a few thousand on our existing one to be at FBS levels.
We got kicked out of CUSA because we didn’t have any plans to have a football team, NOT because we didn’t have one. If we had announced in 2001 that we were going to start a football program, things would be different.
Now conferences know we’re going to have a football team, and anyone with a brain knows our aspirations our FBS. We’re not too late.
What do you mean “soon enough”?
Conference expansion at this point is about potential and TV markets. We already have plans for a bigger stadium and only need a few thousand on our existing one to be at FBS levels.
We got kicked out of CUSA because we didn’t have any plans to have a football team, NOT because we didn’t have one. If we had announced in 2001 that we were going to start a football program, things would be different.
Now conferences know we’re going to have a football team, and anyone with a brain knows our aspirations our FBS. We’re not too late.[/quote]
This.
Would it help if we were already playing? Sure it would, but at this point I am not sure it would help much. In fact all of this happening now might make our stay in FCS even shorter because out of realignment we may find a home quicker than we would have otherwise.
I think that’s wishful thinking. I don’t know how it will all work out, but we have an FCS schedule partially filled out through the 2014 season. Do we cancel all the games we’ve scheduled so far? I think this will play out sooner. I really hope I’m wrong and we have a conference willing to wait for us.
If we get into a major conference, paying to get out of those contracts wouldn’t be a big deal.
We have to play 2 years at FCS so canceling games is not a worry. When you think about it it will take some time for all the dominos to fall and shuffle. I think between A&M’s move and all the other shifts we are looking at a 2-4 year time table. That means we are right in that window.
I still think it’s going to happen faster, but we’ll see. I’d really like it to be a year later before this all goes into motion. If this is in place year after next, any conference would have to wait at least two more years for us to bring football.
I’d be interested to know how much of a schedule UTSA already had and how much they had to pay in buyouts, but if they can do it, we sure can. We don’t have many games on the 2015 slate already scheduled, so I guess it wouldn’t be much
I’m with Austin on this one. I’m not ready to say the sky is falling. But I don’t see how you can think conference realignment happening today would be better than it happening five years from now.