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One of the first lessons I learned upon my arrival in Texas was Sundays were for church. Nothing happens, not until noon, except on Cowboy Sundays when all restrictions are lifted. And if for some heathen reason you were not in attendance at Texas Stadium or a church of your choice, well, at least have the decency not to bug everybody who is.
So when Texas A&M president Dr. R. Bowen Loftin excused himself at church to take a phone call Sunday morning, as tweeted by a member of his congregation, it immediately signified two things: Somebody important was calling. And that somebody was not from Texas.
Sorry, God, The SEC is calling. And Texas A&M is answering.
I told y’all The Aggies were angry. And I told y’all they were leaving the Big 12, and they still are despite the SEC affirming Sunday its “satisfaction with the present 12 institutional alignment.” This is still going down; it's just a matter of SEC decision makers absolving themselves of legal responsibility, nailing down a 14th team and having Texas A&M officially broken up with the Big 12 before any further co-mingling, according to multiple media reports. The Aggies took the next step toward that Monday, as the board of regents gave Loftin the authority to take any action he deems necessary.
What I did not anticipate was how many of y’all would get the blame all screwed up.
A&M is not to blame. Neither is the University of Texas, nor its not-exactly-well-thought-out Longhorn Network. Do not blame SEC commish Mike Slive for doing what is fiscally right by his conference, or his clueless Big 12 counterpart, Dan Beebe, for never fixing what was wrong with his.
Blame fits comfortably into four letters, and not the four letters being mentioned by some. College football does not have an ESPN problem, or a grayshirt problem, or a cheating problem or even a playoff problem. These are merely symptoms.
And to paraphrase "When Harry Met Sally," those symptoms are screwing one of my favorite sports.
This is the result of nobody being in charge of college football or really college athletics at all. The NCAA is so busy chasing the kid getting a free $5 meal or a couple of illegal recruit phone calls or “cracking down” on whatever big-name university happens to be caught cheating years after their championship is won that they are missing the very things destroying college football. TV money. A few omnipotent conference commissioners. Rogue bowl executives.
Actually, they probably do see it. How can they not?
They just lack both the power and the intestinal fortitude to clean this up because there is too much money being made in the mess.
Yes, this is an NCAA problem, and really the college presidents being allowed to perpetrate the fraud that these four letters are looking out for the best interests of college football, collegiate athletes, academics, amateur athletics or anything besides what stuffs their greedy little fists full of cash right now. They get away with this because we swallow their bull spit.
How much more proof do we need than watching NCAA president Mark Emmert, only now, 14 months into this conference swapping, talk of having talks about how to better conduct business. And only then because the raided commissioners were screaming bloody murder. The toothpaste is out of the tube, The New York Times is detailing screaming calls between commissioners, the very fabric of college rivalries is eroding and the NCAA wants to talk? What a fabulous idea. I bet that fixes everything.
The NCAA and their BCS buddies talk of protecting bowl traditions while traditions like Oklahoma-Nebraska and Texas-Texas A&M are sacrificed, and we say nothing. The NCAA is impotent in the Cam Newton saga, and we say nothing. They do not do their due diligence on ESPNMoo (as folks around here have taken to calling Texas' own Longhorn Network), ruling only after A&M complained about high school games on the network, and we say nothing. They pretend to act in the best interests of the kids generating all of this money yet have little power to actually affect change, and we say nothing.
The truth is, college football is better when conferences are regional and a playoff exists to give every team a chance, and if anybody were charged with doing right by the game they would say this. They would whisper in the ear of the SEC, “Don’t you have enough, boys?” And actually point out that 16-team super conferences and universities jumping into beds with networks might not be such a good idea after all.
But the NCAA serves at the pleasure of the presidents, and that relationship works better when the sport they are purportedly charged with monitoring mostly is allowed to exist on the honor system. Slive and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany cross their hearts and promise to act in the best interest of the game, as do TV partners and big-name coaches, and the NCAA holds summits and flexes its muscles from time to time.
Things only get complicated during times like these, when A&M and the SEC are basically deciding the size and shape of college football going forward. And they answer to nobody, certainly not a ringing phone from Indianapolis.
