The bad blood between the Texas Longhorns and the Texas A&M Aggies continues.
Speaking to Paul Finebaum on ESPN Radio yesterday, UT athletics director Steve Patterson said that their football series with Texas A&M is dead unless there is a “compelling” reason for it to resume.
“I think the reality for us is A&M made a choice they felt was best for them to move to the SEC. That’s great for them. They’ve leveraged that well…For us there has to be a real business or branding case made to play anybody that we play with our football games given the way our schedule is structured playing Oklahoma every year in Dallas…Unless there really is a compelling business or branding reason, I see a hard time renewing that rivalry in football,” Patterson said.
Patterson’s statement yesterday falls in line with one he made earlier this month. On playing the Aggies again he said “It’s not at the top of my list.”
Texas and Texas A&M last met on Nov. 24, 2011, and the Longhorns came out on top 27-25. Texas A&M then left the Big 12 Conference to join the SEC. Ever since that move, athletic directors at the two schools haven’t shied away from taking jabs at each other.
Last year, Texas athletics director DeLoss Dodds made a strong statement about the Aggies’ move.
“They left,” Dodds said. “They’re the ones that decided not to play us. We get to decide when we play again. I think that’s fair. If you did a survey of our fans about playing A&M, they don’t want to. It’s overwhelming. I know. I hear it. Our fans are important to us. I think there’s got to be a period where things get different. I think there’s too many hard feelings.”
Dodds did say, however, that he thinks the two rivals will get back together on the gridiron eventually. “I think we’ll play sometime,” Dodds said. “I don’t know when it will happen or how it will happen, but I’m sure it will happen.”
New Texas head football coach Charlie Strong was asked about the series at his introductory press conference. He wants to play.
“Oh yeah, you would love to because if you look at it, there’s two schools that played a number of years, and you’d like for that to continue.
“But it’s so hard now with the different conferences, and now when you talk about ‘Hey, let’s go play another Texas A&M,’ you’re asking for a lot of big games to be played. And a lot of schools just don’t want to see that happen right now because the number of in-conference games they have to play.”
The Longhorns and Aggies have met 118 times and played every season from 1915 through 2011. Texas leads the overall series 76-37-5.
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“I think the reality for us is A&M made a choice they felt was best for them to move to the SEC. That’s great for them. They’ve leveraged that well…For us there has to be a real business or branding case made to play anybody that we play with our football games given the way our schedule is structured playing Oklahoma every year in Dallas…Unless there really is a compelling business or branding reason, I see a hard time renewing that rivalry in football,” Patterson said.
LOL!!!
As an outside with no affiliation with either school, I think it's pretty evident that UT is scared. While I do think Coach Strong will bring the team around eventually, TAMU is head and shoulders above UT on the field whereas the Longhorns are in the very uneasy position of fighting to become the 3rd best team in the state.
UT has a big va-jay-jay! A&M is much better now - so we don't want any of it! Running Scared!!!
Couple of things. First, when Patterson is saying these things, he is talking to his base, he is talking to the alumni. He was not a popular choice among the money men of the Texas-Ex's and he is trying to ingratiate himself to those folks. Charlie String has done the same type of thing in the past. He's basically fellating the alumni.
Second, there are only two reasons to play anyone is college football, tradition and money. They played Oklahoma for a long time before the conferences merge, there is no reason they could not play us on the same terms.
Third, they wont start talking about playing A&M until they feel they are in a position to win. The last thing Peterson or Strong want is to schedule a game and be in a position to loose to both Oklahoma and A&M again. That was a combination that always puts the AD and head Coach's head on the chopping block.
76-37-5
aggy are the SEC's problem now.
no takebacks.
if yer skeered, say yer skeered. Texas sucks!
You see, you didn't even need to put "Aggie" in your name for us to know you went there. We can tell from the spelling.
While there is clearly animosity between Texas and A&M, if you read what Patterson said ("real business or branding case"), I think you see the real reason this game won't be played. Texas plays a 9-game conference schedule with one of those games in Dallas. For them to play six home games, five road games and one neutral site game vs. Oklahoma, they have to buy one non-conference home game and then schedule two home-and-home non-conference games. They are already playing either eight or nine games in the state of Texas every year, so committing to playing their one shot a marque non-conference road game in the state of Texas makes no sense for a school that needs to maintain a national brand. If they play A&M home-and-home, they are looking at potentially playing, for example, ten games in Texas, one game in Iowa and one game in West Virginia. That’s not going to work for them. If you look at their future road games, they are in locations like Notre Dame (two games), USC, Ohio State, Cal, FedEx Field in Maryland, and Arkansas (which has been postponed once and I wouldn't be surprised to see cancelled or moved to JerryWorld). All of those are in places outside the Big 12 footprint, in larger markets, and in significant recruiting areas like California and Ohio.
Texas does not want to play A&M because the Longhorns are upset because the Aggies' move to the SEC stopped a mass exodus of Big 12 teams to the Pac 12. A&M did not do what Texas wanted them to do, so not playing A&M is their way of punishing the Aggies. This is unfortunate because the Texas vs. Texas A&M rivalry was one of the best rivalries in college football. Hopefully in the near future both teams will reschedule games and continue their rivalry.
Meh. Aggies left. They seem happy being in a new conference. The rivalry always mattered more to aTm despite UT's relative dominance. As a native Texan, I was sad to see the series end, but they killed it the 1st year they stopped playing. Sucks for fans of CFB that the schools had to act so selfishly and ruin something good.
This too shall pass... The Aggies are in a much better place now and with each year that tu hides in a corner like a scolded dog, they become more of a speck in the rearview mirror. tu can say that it's all about branding, but at the end of the day their branding could be negatively affected by such cowardice. also, tu is so incredibly but hurt that the "red-headed step-child" of Texas has in 2 short years usurped tu's place at the top. Texas A&M has always been on record as saying "we will play anywhere, anytime", and that sentiment is echoes across Aggieland. They can say that "they left"(the conference) and think that justifies killing off a mainstay in college football. In reality, OU and tu played each other for several decades while they were in the Big Eight and Southwest Conference respectively. Not to mention, many SEC schools have a tradition of either starting or ending the season with their non-conference, in-state opponent. UF-FSU, SC-Clemson, UGA-GT, UK-L'ville. Point being that the issue is clearly not because of the Aggies move to the SEC, instead it is evidently because the t-sips are so scared of loosing that they'd rather destroy a storied rivalry and try to blame it on A&M. Well go ahead and try to save face and enjoy trying to hype up a thanksgiving game against... wait for it... TCU (the team that got left out of the original Big 12). In classic burnt orange flavored arrogance, this game will always be played at DKR Memorial. So to recap, they retain a substantial amount of the league's revenue because they don't believe in equal revenue sharing, they have their own network so they can televise diving and equestrian meets, and now they are apparently too good to play anywhere but at home on Thanksgiving. For the time being most Aggies are content letting bevo keep his head up his own ass because we know that if they ever have the balls to play us in the future they will be knocked off their burnt orange Ivory tower so hard and so fast that they will no longer be able to save face and they'll have to wallow in the bevoshit that they have laid for themselves. Gig'em! Fighting Texas Aggie '16
This Steve Patterson character has learned quickly that UT is always on top, always the decider, regardless of the facts. Why did this report come out? A&M does not want to play Texas, does not need to play Texas, and is grabbing more media attention in the SEC than
Texas is doing playing its Big 12 schedule.
Yes, Patterson, this is no compelling reason, but we all knew that.