DALLAS — As a Texas A&M assistant and then head coach, R.C. Slocum faced off against Texas exactly 30 times, each game special in its own way
Before each meeting with the Aggies’ arch-rival, Slocum reminded his players about the scope of the game.
“I used to tell my players that from the tall banks of Houston to the office buildings of Dallas to the deer blinds out in the Hill Country, wherever in this state, they’ll be a lot of people talking about this,” Slocum said. “I thought it was a real privilege to play and coach in that game.”
Now it’s back — eventually — and maybe as soon as the 2024 season, when Texas along with Oklahoma officially joins the SEC. Like pretty much everything else about the Longhorns and Sooners exiting the Big 12 for the SEC, it’s complicated.
With the SEC headed toward a schedule without divisions, the next big question is whether the league goes to eight games with one permanent opponent or nine games with three permanent opponents each year.
If it’s a nine-game schedule, then A&M will play Texas each year beginning in 2024, in a huge marquee game. If it’s an eight-game schedule, Texas’ permanent opponent will be OU while A&M will most likely have LSU. A&M and Texas would play twice every four years.
“As we sit here today, it has not been decided,” A&M athletic director Ross Bjork said. “My belief is that everybody sees the value in going to nine SEC conference games but there are still a couple pieces of information that we need to receive from the SEC, from our television partners. We need to see a few models. Until we see all of that, we haven’t decided yet.”
One key aspect: Will ESPN pay more in its already humongous new deal with the SEC for a ninth conference game?
In a recent interview with McElroy and Cublic in the Morning on WJOX in Birmingham, Ala., SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he hoped to have a decision by conference spring meetings in late May.
He refused to telegraph the outcome.
“We’ve been intentional about our ability to have annual rivalries played, or rivalries played every other year,” Sankey said. “We haven’t arrived at a destination between eight or nine games. The number of games will facilitate the number of annual games that take place.
“We’ve also kind of looked at the bandwidth of balance and fairness, if you will, in a schedule. We’ve worked with athletic directors to define what that means.”
Bjork is squarely on the side of nine games. He even suggested 10 conference games a year in an SEC meeting at one point.
“That didn’t go anywhere,” Bjork said.
Football coach Jimbo Fisher said he would prefer A&M’s permanent opponents to be Texas, LSU and Mississippi State if the SEC goes to nine conference games. Bjork didn’t dispute the notion.
He does welcome the return of Texas to the Aggie football schedule for the first time since 2011.
“It rekindles what was there for however many years between all the different conferences over time,” Bjork said. “Obviously, you’re going to have a consistent platform of playing, instead of a Tuesday night baseball game or an occasional NCAA meeting.”
He predicts a charged atmosphere for the first meeting.
“Standing room will be a premium,” he said.
Bjork also has famously said the first game — whenever the series returns — would be at Kyle Field.
“I’ll stand by my previous comments,” Bjork said. “Nothing new to add.”
For his part, Slocum would love the A&M-Texas game to return to its traditional date during Thanksgiving week. That isn’t guaranteed either, especially with so many other SEC rivalry games that week.
Slocum sees vindication for A&M after what was viewed as a controversial move at the time, bolting the Big 12 to try to forge its own destiny.
“We did it for the right reasons,” Slocum said. “We were moving to the SEC because we thought it was the premiere league in the country. We could see where things were going with television and we wanted to be a part of it. We took some hits when we left. There were those who took shots at us, but we did what was best for us. It’s been very good.
“It’s kind of interesting now. I still know some of those people who made some real strong statements when we left for the SEC. Now it’s a little humorous to see them all excited about joining the SEC.”
