College Football

Proof the Aggies are officially turning Texas into SEC country

Updated Mar. 5, 2020 1:45 a.m. ET

foxsports

I've been arguing for several years now that Texas A&M's decision to join the SEC represented a seismic change in the landscape of Texas college football. In particular, A&M recognized something important -- in today's college football universe who you ally yourself with in a conference is as important as your program's history. You're only as good as the teams you play against.

In the laboratory of college football several years ago Texas and Texas A&M made different decisions. While Texas decided to follow the Notre Dame path and essentially go it alone with their own Longhorn Network and a conference of inferior Big 12 opponents, A&M decided to join the SEC and wed itself to the nation's most popular football conference. A&M's thesis was simple -- we can't beat the Texas Longhorn brand head-to-head, but the SEC alongside A&M can beat Texas in conjunction with the Big 12. Texas thought the opposite -- nothing matters but our Longhorn brand, we're going to start our own network and take it national. There was only one problem, the games on the Longhorn Network were crap and in deciding to start its own network Texas killed the chances for a Big 12 Network and forced out Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri and Texas A&M, four of the six most valuable teams in the then existing Big 12.

So what would happen, was Texas's plan to effectively go independent a better decision than A&M's decision to wed itself to the SEC? Well, after four years we're starting to get some reliable indications of which school made the better decision. A&M is embarking on a renovation of all its facilities, including a massive expansion of Kyle Field, and the SEC Network, launched in large part because of A&M's entry to the league, is a tremendous success, tossing off hundreds of millions of dollars a year and ensuring that every SEC school will make more money off the SEC Network than Texas will make off the Longhorn Network. Meanwhile, Texas has floundered in the Big 12, fired its long time coach, and is hoping that Charlie Strong can return the Longhorns to perennial top ten status. But that's no certainty. Particularly not with the rise of Baylor in the Big 12 and Texas A&M making the state of Texas more competitive for recruits than it ever has been before. Texas with A&M in the SEC is a entirely new world.

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