[College Football] Big Ten, Texas have initial talks

This.

Programs come and go.

LSU was crap in the 90's... hell, UH beat them, at BR!

Florida was garbage for the better part of what, 30 years?

You can't make decisions with a 3-5 year point of view, you have to think 20+.

 

Stop trying. Nobody remembers history. Everyone on this board thinks Boise State is a move attractive program than TAMU or Arkansas. Nobody here understands that teams improve.

 

I'm talking about pay for play. I do think A&M is definitely on the rise, but I'm afraid a little $$ is needed to get the best players out of SEC country.

And one thing no Aggies consider when they make the cyclical argument is that the SEC hasn't always been the "BEST CONFERENCE EVAR!11!" and, by your cyclical logic, eventually will come back down to earth. So what will you have then? Your one recruiting advantage over Texas (SEC!SEC!SEC!) will be negated and you will merely be a team in a good, not great, conference that plays no other teams in Texas.

 

You're severely underestimating the value of A&M getting out from under UT's thumb.

That is worth more than the SEC prestige, IMO.

Freedom is everything.

 

At that point, they recruit the kids who aren't interested in the Big12 (or Pac16 or whatever Texas is in at that point). That's the whole point - they can recruit DIFFERENT kids if they are in a different conference. If they are in the same conference as UT, no matter how good or bad the conference is, they are appealing to the same kids who want to play in that conference.

 

TAMU pays. They all pay. I don't get your logic about the SEC, you think TAMU is better off in the neutered Big 12? I don't get all the doubt. Nebraska did what they had to do. Its TAMU's turn.

 

And TAMU's sell has been the ability to play early, since they're less talented than OU and UT. Its one of the reasons they always have a solid staple of 4-5 star running backs.

 

Okay, I guess that makes sense.

For me though, I really think recruiting comes down to winning. If A&M really thinks that they can win, and win consistently, in the SEC, then this is a no-brainer move. But if they don't win, and this goes for Texas, OU, 'Bama, etc. then recruiting will suffer, no matter what conference they are in.

LSU, 'Bama, Florida, etc. don't reel in monster recruiting classes purely because they are in the SEC. It's because they are successful. I definitely think offering something different from UT will affect them positively for the first few years, but if they (or anyone else) post consistent 4-8 seasons (I'm not saying they will, just if) then kids won't go there just because they are in a new conference.

 

But even with that irrelevance, LSU had the insane fan base, the 4-day tailgate parties, and the love of an entire state. It's a lot easier to build a national championship program in Baton Rouge than it is in College Station. If you can't recognize that, you don't really understand college football or 18-year-old athletes.

 

I'd agree with that - if they don't win, they are going to get stuck in that 2nd tier that's hard to get out of. But if you're a proud program like A&M, I don't think you look at it and say "hey, that conference is just too tough for us".

 

It may have been theoretically easier, but they never succeeded at it. You'd think that kind of stuff makes a huge difference, but for every glamour school like Florida or Texas or USC, you also have teams like Oklahoma or Virginia Tech or Auburn that build programs too (or even Boise State, though not quite at the same level). And the love of all of Louisiana is still less than the love of about 1/3rd of Texas, so A&M doesn't take a backseat there at all. The reason it works is that different kids have different backgrounds and different interests, and since you're only recruiting 25 kids a year, you can focus on the ones that your environment has the most appeal for.

 

And for all the talk about the insane fan base, prior to their 2003 national title, they didn't sell out season tickets on a regular basis.

 

There's no reason A&M can't be on the level of Auburn. Every 3 years or so competing for an SEC title.

They've had bad coaching for awhile now and bad recruiting. Sherman seems to have turned that around. Prior to last year, it's not like A&M was third in the Big12. They were in a mix with OSU, Nebraska, Missouri and Texas Tech to see who was going to be the best team after OU and Texas.

 

A&M vs. Auburn would be a redneck hillbilly throwdown like no other.

Good gravy.

 

You can't possibly think about this on a twenty year point-of-view. There is no way you can predict what will happen in that time frame. Ten years is stretching it. The Big 12 hasn't even been around 15 years yet.

 

Just because it is hard to predict doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

 

I agree. People vastly overrated the "right now."

 

ChuckCarltonDMN Chuck Carlton
Texas House Higher Education Comm. schedules a hearing at 2 p.m. Aug. 16 on A&M. Expect A&M President Bowen Loftin to be asked to appear.

 

None at all, as long as they're willing to invest the capital it takes to get guys like Cam Newton on campus....time to repo Eric Dickerson's trans am!

 

name one single poster who believes this.

so your mythical poster who is pimping boise state as a more attractive program than a&m thinks that boise state has been the more attractive program forever?