I don't think TX is going anywhere and as long as they are here, KSU, ISU, and prob one or two other of the little guys in our confy will stick and just invite new members and keep our BCS status. I am fine with this rather than watching all the games on Eastern time.
All of this re-realignment talk is being fabricated from nameless A&M sources via their message boards and fan sites due to their butthurt over the LHN. There hasn't been one piece of tangible evidence that I've seen that says the SEC has approached them for even exploratory discussions. They may have approached the SEC, but for the SEC to go after A&M, they'd have to get at least one more school, and then that gets into a whole lot of "who?" that really has little basis in reality.
A&M can moan and groan and shake their sticks like they're a Sandperson from the deserts of Tatooine, but the truth of the matter is that the "Core Four" are a political landmine for any conference that wants to extend an invite. A&M may think they have the ability to just go out and talk to whoever they want, but the second there are REAL talks, there will be a special session of the Texas legislature called to discuss why this isn't going to happen.
And the one thing that I haven't heard ANYONE talk about in this latest round of realignment is the potential for poaching Miami, Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Maryland, etc. to join the SEC. The ACC just renegotiated first tier rights, and they barely exceed what we just got for second tier rights when you add the total packages together. As soon as the Big 12 renegotiates first tier, and you consider the fact that we have two less teams to split the revenue, we're going to blow them out of the water in terms of revenue generation. And if I'm the SEC commish, I'm thinking that a complete monopoly of the state of Florida plus, say, the addition of Clemson and the Baltimore and DC television markets makes for a much more attractive and profitable venture than trying to pry A&M from the Texas legislature.
You must take all four of them, or you take none of them. And Texas won't go to the SEC (they aren't serious enough about academics), and the Pac-12 won't take Baylor (Cal and Stanford will kidnap Larry Scott and sell him to human traffickers before that happens), so bound together until the state of Texas no longer exists or the NCAA no longer exists, whichever comes first.
It just cracks me up with relatively smart and knowledgeable people will say things like, "The Big 12 is not stable." Well, no, the schools don't like each other, but we're all bound together by a series of strong bonds that keep this confederation a mutually profitable venture.
* All four Texas schools are bound together. If Texas wants to go somewhere, they have to take the entourage. If any of the others want to go, they're stuck to Texas for political reasons. And no one wants Baylor. So they're stuck.
* Oklahoma wants to be with Texas, and Oklahoma State wants to be with Oklahoma.
* Kansas and Kansas State are together. It is what it is.
* Iowa State has nowhere else to go.
* Missouri is a willing participant in any discussions with other conferences, but the only two that would be interesting to them are the Big Ten (who doesn't want them) and the SEC (who may take them if about ten other schools pass first)
We're a profitable conference. These teams don't have better realistic options. Everything is fine. It's going to be fine, and people need to stop acting like everything is going to fall apart. It's not.
