Strange...
SEC going back out west for members?
Brent Zwerneman,
Staff writer
Updated: July 25, 2021 7:46 p.m.
While acknowledging a gripe with SEC "procedural matters," Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork avers that the conference "is in the best position to lead in this transformative time in college athletics.”
Texas A&MUniversity | Mark Guerrero
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M has no intention of trying to block the Southeastern Conference from admitting Texas and Oklahoma. The Aggies also have no intention of trusting the SEC again.
The Aggies, multiple A&M insiders have revealed in recent days, learned a valuable lesson from the past week, and it will serve as a three-word mantra moving forward: “Trust no one.”
A&M, the insiders offered, was blindsided by Wednesday’s bombshell news that UT and OU intend to exit the Big 12 and enter the SEC. Whether that’s as early as 2022 or as late as 2025 is to be determined.
On Texas Sports Nation: Texas A&M: ‘We’re ready’
A&M athletic director Ross Bjork said “conversations are being had” with the SEC concerning its leaving A&M and other league programs out of the loop on the realignment front — especially when it comes to old nearby rivals — and that “there are definitely procedural matters that need to come forward.”
Bjork was like plenty of others: He’d heard rumors of potential expansion but was stunned when the news broke during A&M’s session Wednesday at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Ala.
“No one saw anything accelerating this fast, of course, and so in terms of mechanisms of expansion, there are processes and procedures,” Bjork told the Chronicle. “We’re making sure our positions and interests have been brought forward in the appropriate manner.”
Bjork added: “At the end of the day, and regardless of who joins the SEC now or in the future, we’re going to compete against them at the highest level on the gridiron, on the court, on the field and in the classroom — in all facets.”
One longtime league insider said A&M, which joined the SEC nine years ago and is still a relative newbie to the nearly 90-year-old conference, became painfully familiar in the past few days with how the powerful conference has operated for decades: pitilessly behind the scenes to get things done.
The insider said the SEC perhaps dealt informally with UT, OU and ESPN in recent months, with the idea of approaching other league members — including A&M — when the Longhorns and Sooners formally informed the Big 12 of their intentions to exit the league and pursue other opportunities. That’s expected to happen Monday.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has responded with multiple “no comments” in the days since the story broke but also has made it clear he intends to look out for the long-term health of the already-mighty league.
The league insider said Sankey, and smooth-operating SEC commissioner Mike Slive before him, would have had a hard time getting anything done if multiple parties always were involved with early discussions.
Additionally, the insider added, there’s a reason the SEC has become the country’s most powerful football league. It employs an often ruthless, throttle-open approach that does not always leave everyone thrilled but often results in a unanimous “yes” vote among league members in the end.
Because, despite the league infighting, the insider claimed, no one has a member’s back against outsiders like the SEC “family.” Bjork addressed as much in claiming A&M would welcome any newcomers — and then try to whip them in competition.
“The SEC is in the best position to lead in this transformative time in college athletics,” Bjork said. “Obviously, there is interest from others wanting to join us in that journey.”
Speaking of a transformative time, A&M also has been through one in the past year with regard to its presidency. Michael K. Young, largely unpopular in College Station and occasionally unplugged with SEC minutiae, stepped down at the end of the calendar year.
John Junkins served as interim president through May and was succeeded by the university’s 26th president, Kathy Banks, on June 1. A&M’s athletic directors and presidents have been the most involved with the SEC goings-on. Bjork is A&M’s third athletic director since the Aggies joined the SEC in 2012.
A&M chancellor John Sharp, who largely has steered clear of SEC wheelings and dealings in the past decade, leaving those to the president and athletic director, could not be reached for comment. Banks offered in a statement this past weekend that while dealing with a “challenging” few days following the realignment news, “we look forward to continued success in our SEC partnership for many years to come.”
On that front and based on A&M’s initial anger at being left out of early discussions concerning UT and OU following a solid relationship in the Aggies’ first nine years in the SEC, Banks knows she can now try to influence A&M’s positioning in a revamped league.
One of her predecessors at A&M, R. Bowen Loftin, helped the Aggies transition from the Big 12 to the SEC a decade ago. Loftin encourages Banks to get involved in the proverbial horse-trading immediately.
“Questions like (division alignment) have to be answered,” Loftin said. “Where do you draw the boundaries of a new league? Maybe there’s enough guilt on the part of some people that they might give A&M a little more clout in that particular negotiation — if we have the right people at the table.”
brent.zwerneman@chron.com
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/tex...YwinliFQpAEYyc
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