re: For Texas A&M and Missouri fans...

I'll go with what I miss the most about the Big 12 first.

1.) I miss having a bit of regional rivalry to the games. Most of my family went to OU, so not being able to beat them kind of sucks.

2.) I miss playing Tech. Their fans can be trashy, but most are decent enough... and when we beat them, it hurt them most of all. I have a really good buddy that went to Tech, and whose dad is one of their biggest donors, and have developed sort of a soft spot for them. My favorite Big 12 team is probably them and Oklahoma State now.

3.) I miss the Thanksgiving element with playing tu, and playing them in general.

*Note, I don't think the game should be brought back until A&M wins the SEC and until the Big 12 folds and college football adopts a better system like ( https://savecollegefootball.org) where A&M isn't punished for playing two big time out of conference opponents every year as well as an SEC West schedule. The latter being key. Playing tu would be fun, but not more fun that playing Clemson/Miami/Notre Dame, and with an SEC West schedule, we can't do both.

4.) I miss Nebraska fans. Very gracious at Kyle Field. Quite jarring to see how great their fans were in 2010, then see that swamp trash Florida fans brought in 2012.

About joining the SEC; almost everything.

1.) Exposure. I was hesitant about the move at first, having to give a frick about the Mississippi schools instead of the Oklahoma schools and how that might diminish our relevance in some way. Our division(sans the last season) was a Texoma division. And I guess my ties to Oklahoma made me feel like losing those teams was really going to diminish us in someway, whether that be recruiting or brand relevance. How foolish. Sure there is a tiny drawback not being able to fight against the Okies, but that's more than made up for with LSU/Auburn/Alabama. Especially now with Jimbo, establishing ourselves as a national brand is irreversible, something we never really had before.

I remember A&M's marketing guy, Jason Cook who is now at Baylor, has some survey/study referenced how in 2008 when Tech beat tu, that nationally Tech was viewed as the second best brand/program in the state to outsiders. And that really hit home to me how not only has A&M done a terrible idea marketing itself to be more of a Florida/FSU type relationship with tu in the state as opposed to a Michigan/Michigan State or OU/Oklahoma State type dynamic, but that brand dilution is terrible and unavoidable.

Tech, under no circumstances, should have been one football upset away from supplanting us as a brand and program. Hell, at the time we had a two game win streak against tu, as if that's even relevant.

In the past 40 years, the State of Florida has won 11 National Championships, between 3 different schools, all three winning at least 3. The State of Texas? One. Even if you consider the Texoma region, Oklahoma has only won 2 in the last 40 years, on an almost 20 year drought. Which is why I seriously contend that one of the best things that could happen to A&M(and tu for that matter) is if the Pac-16 did happen. There would have been 3 teams in the state in a major conference as opposed to 5, and one of them would have been in Lubbock.

2.) Beating LSU. I am from DFW, not the Houston area, so my exposure to swamp kitten growing up was smaller relative to Aggy, Red Raider, sip, Sooner, etc. Working in oil and gas and being exposed much more to Houston, I see how natural that rivalry is and how much we missed by LSU pulling the most chicken shite move in the history of college football and breaking the contract early because they knew they couldn't build a winning program starting off playing Daddy every year.

3.) Fun road venues. The Grove is overrated. It's tiny, you can't have an open flame, and everyone is trying a little too hard. That being said, it's better than Stillwater, Waco, Lubbock, Aimes, Manhattan and Lawrence. At least Columbia, Boulder and Lincoln had a baseline level of fun college town/great fanbase. I actually think Stillwater is a bit underrated, but it's basically Starkville. Nothing special. Either way, the SEC West is fun to go to. Still need to check out Tuscaloosa.

4.) Developing our own identity. A&M hasn't had a losing record since we've joined the SEC. We won a Heisman. We beat number one Bama on the road. We've had wins over top ten ranked(at the time) Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama, South Carolina, and LSU. We are the only SEC team in the State of Texas. It's great to be able to point to these things about us, as opposed to when I was growing up and it was "you can't be taken seriously until you start beating Texas", even though from 84-94 we beat them 10 out of 11. Facts didn't matter in the face of branding and our identity. Aggy is Aggy now. We will be coming up on ten years in the SEC soon, and I think it's safe to say this ride has been great.