re: Predict the first moment once Texas joins when they find out, They are not special,

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You're the one always talking about how OU is the alpha in our region

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They are on the national stage

You guys are Michigan, not Ohio State. You just think you are Ohio State

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Texas didn't bend over backwards to save the Big 12. But that was quite intentional. It's a flyover midwestern conference that had no chance of expanding

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This is where you are wrong, allow me to drop some history

B1G + PAC = Force A (cemented by Beyers for 3 decades or so)
ACC + SEC = Force B (never given credit by media)
SWC + Big 8 = Force C (solid product but egos supplant common sense)

While Alabama (football) and Kentucky (basketball) were the alpha dogs of the SEC they knew giving up some individual power to strengthen the whole was the smart long term play because they were disrespected as a region.

It is like a kingdom run at court where egos will create the infighting to eventually destroy the kingdom and kingdoms built on external forces like resources or trade. As the defacto leader of the SWC Utx never learned to play with others and never had to grow up to live in the modern age as a child would mature to an adult.

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I think you just might hate us irrationally.

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I really don't. I have witnessed this train wreck for decades and feel more sorrow than anything else. Wasted talent, wasted resources, and wasted time is what you notice most at my age. it is like watching King Lear in real life when the audience can see the end but the players are oblivious. That is what makes tragedy great because as outsiders we learn and try not to make the same mistakes over and over.

One of my best friends (now passed) was an austin native and I love Texas (the state) just sometimes their people don't know how to not let their egos get in the way, and that makes me sad.

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what does that make Texas A&M

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His battered wife.

Imagine if TAMU had stayed in the SIAA and been a Charter SEC school when austin ran away to form the SWC?

I cut TAMU slack (and Oklahoma) for putting up with your tantrums so long.

Imagine TAMU as Charter SEC
Imagine Arkansas in the Big 8

LSU and Rebs turned town the SWC offer so SWC would have been an all TX conference nobody outside of TX would care about. Utx would have been an even bigger fish in a much smaller pond.

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That is your view When actually join you will be fresh meat and what you think of as obsession will become a nightmare. This part is just the fun and games of a cat playing with a mouse. Does not end well for the mouse when the cat finally gets bored.

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The harder you people go at this narrative the harder it is to take you seriously.

They had this moment September 2021 when they got raw hogged

The go to Vandy year 1 and bring home an L.

Already happened when they announced they were joining and promptly got destroyed by Arkansas

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Factions at A&M have been eyeing the SEC since before Arkansas left the SWC.

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Nebraska had been flirting with the B1G since they took in Ohio State about 100 years ago. What is your point?

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The conference was a dead man walking when that happened.

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They were #2 in the USA in content, the real Dead Man Walking was the ACC, they were below even the Big East in chance to survive. This is your problem, you whine and make excuses instead of taking the reigns and leading the horses to the safe path in the distance. ACC took the lemons and made lemonade, you guys sat on your butts like prima donnas and got left with the lemonade when it comes out the other end.

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Southern states are bonded over losing the civil war and view dominance in sports as a way to get back at the Union

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B1G won the war and they still bonded to create a powerful conference. Probably in part of Chicago and Minnesota being the power early and not Ohio State. What the South did not have was the media love of the East, Midwest, and West. They had to bond to overcome that bias. That is where the real bond was. Just before my time but not my dad or my grandad who lived through it. The guys that made it work were tough bastartds and not given to playing victims. Think about a person who lived through WW I, Great Depression, and WW II.


If you were around (and forgotten today) was the B1G started modern realignment with Penn State. They were the first to announce but it took 2 - 4 years before they were official. Lots of time in between where everybody had a shot. SEC moved faster because everybody else was the girl looking for the hotter guy and loses her place. Between Utx's ego and Baylor getting an undeserved spot you cast your own lot. You just need to own it and get your head out of the sand.

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How can a conference starting out on such a shaky foundation survive?

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How did the SEC work together in the start?

It starts with the SWC

Take the Big 8 and add
Utx
TAMU
Arkansas
TT (was a Border conference school) or TCU, just not Baylor

Keep the HQ in the Big 8 footprint (more reason for NCAA to stay put)

B12 North
kansas / Kansas State
Colorado / Nebraska
Missouri / Iowa State

B12 South
Utx / TAMU
OU / OSU
Texas Tech or TCU / Arkansas

That would mean the TX schools would have to be less dominate but creates a hell of a conference

(7) AAU schools - make the college presidents happy
(4) CFB schools - Oklahoma, Nebraska, Utx, and Arkansas
(3) MCBB schools - kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma

Demographics alone mean you can outlast the B1G and the PAC never gets Colorado. Utx took Baylor to have a lesser flea who would be grateful, not a good way to build unity from the start.

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Already happened when they announced they were joining and promptly got destroyed by Arkansas

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Nevermind. This is the correct answer.

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Utx took Baylor to have a lesser flea who would be grateful, not a good way to build unity from the start.

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Texas was forced to take Baylor because the Governor of Texas at the time, Anne Richards, was a Baylor alum. Bob Bullock, the Lt. Governor, was a Texas Tech alum.

Like I said earlier, the Big 12 was Texas' solution to the Texas government's threat to pull public funding if those two schools weren't included in whatever happened after the SWC died.

Richards and Bullock made that threat after hearing rumors that Texas and Texas A&M were either both going to the SEC or Texas would head to the PAC. It was everyone's 2nd choice, and was doomed from the start, as shotgun weddings tend to be.