The Ego

As college football season nears, I'm hearing a lot of talk about ego.  Particularly the ego of the Texas Longhorns.  I know I live in my own bubble, and my viewpoint may be skewed, but when Nebraska and Colorado left the Big XII last year, it always seemed to come back to Texas:

....But Texas doesn't share conference revenue evenly.
....But Texas wants it's own TV network.
....But there are rumors Texas is going to the PAC 10
....But Texas is greedy.

Wait - didn't Nebraska repeatedly vote against more equal revenue sharing when they were in the Big XII?  It doesn't matter.  Texas is evil.  

Now here we are, three weeks from the season and Texas A&M is working to claw it's way out of the Big XII.  And here again, it all comes down to ego - Longhorn ego? 

I'm hearing the Aggies want to go to the SEC to compete in a more competitive conference.  Okay - hey, I hear ya!  The BCS has had 12 Championship games since it's inception, and in those 12 games, the SEC has competed in seven of them.  Wait - hasn't there been another team with seven BCS Championship game appearances?! Oh yeah, it was the Big XII...yet A&M has been there nonce.

Since the inception of the Big XII, Texas A&M has won one Big XII Championship and played in one BCS bowl. They have not won more than 9 games in a season since the new millennium. They have lost five consecutive bowl games (including their single BCS bowl appearance).   I don't get why A&M wants to leave a conference where they are on middle of the ladder to go to one where they are on the bottom rung.  Assuming that A&M were to land in the SEC, they'd likely fall in the SEC West, where two of the six teams are in the top five and five in the top 20. Yikes. Pretty lofty for a team that hasn't finished in the top 10 since the late '90's.  

Then there's money.  I don't pretend to know all the details of the revenue sharing in the Big XII, but I am pretty sure that the Big XII voted unanimously (Texas included) to change revenue sharing to make it more equal among the teams, now 76% equal sharing (up from 57%) with the remaining 24% allocated based on TV appearances, which is scaled to the importance (ie, conference championship, tournament, CWS or BCS/national game/championship) of the event.  If this was about money, why didn't A&M oppose the vote and propose a new %? Oh, I think it was because with this vote, they got more money.    The SEC has equal profit sharing.  I guess that's good for the teams that are on TV less. Why did A&M join a conference without equal profit sharing in the first place? The Longhorns come off as greedy but everyone signed the same contract.  I'll bet that deal didn't look as good to Texas when they were 4-7 & 5-5...back when the Big XII started.

Also, didn't A&M (along with Texas and Oklahoma) agree to divvy up a portion of the $2 million dollars each that the little guys (Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Missouri and Baylor) gave up when Colorado and Nebraska left the conference in order to pacify the big three into staying?  Where was the equal revenue sharing love then?  But it's Texas who is the greedy team. Eeeevil. 

Don't even get me started on recruiting.  Texas A&M is going to the SEC to get better recruits?!  Do they realize that by opening up the state to the SEC, they are now going to go from what, getting the 2nd or 3rd most recruits out of  the state of Texas to getting even less recruits out of Texas? Florida?! Alabama? Georgia? LSU! Let's think this through, guys.  A high school football player good enough to get recruited to one of these schools, or Texas or Oklahoma for that matter, could easily go to A&M if that's what they wanted.  I'm not trying to be mean, but  I don't think that going to a 'better' conference to be the 3rd worst team is going to help your recruiting. 

Of course there is the Longhorn Network. Though I can't get my hands on an actual quote, I believe that a few years ago, when the idea of the Longhorn Network was still a baby, DeLoss Dodds went to Bill Byrne with the idea of a network called "The Flagship Network" featuring Texas and Texas A&M sports.  Byrne rejected the idea, saying it was not a good fit for Texas A&M.  Again, I don't know all those details, but I do know this happened.  Additionally, word is that A&M doesn't have a problem with Texas having it's own network in theory, but feels it's "unethical" to have high school football games on TV in such a manner?  Now that this portion of the LHN is off the table, why the hate?   A&M is welcome to have their own network: whether they can't get it done or don't care to, why hold it against Texas?  I doubt when an SEC team follows suit the reaction will be so vehement.  The Longhorns may be the first with their own network, but they won't be the last - this will be irrelevant, of course, because at that point it won't be about Texas and their big ego.  It will be standard for top tier programs.

University of Texas football topped profit topped just under $70 million last year. PROFIT!  $16 million more than the #2: Georgia.  This is in a year when Texas was 5-7.  Texas A&M netted $25 million.  Not too schnarky, Ags, that's 18th in the nation.  For a football team averaging 7.6 wins over the last 15 years, that's pretty darn good.  In fact it's better than 102 other teams in the FBS.  Why not stick with the Big XII, with four of it's ten teams (five of twelve if you consider that Nebraska, #13 was included in these 2010 stats) ranked in the top 20 in profits, especially knowing that with only 10 teams from this season on, the number can only grow?  There's only one good reason: Ego.

But not ours.

The Longhorns have never made apologies for trying to be the best.  And when they're the not the best, they're trying to make corrections to be the best.  Texas has a lot of pride.  They don't pretend otherwise.

And they also aren't the ones running.  A&M needs to be honest about the reasons the want out of the Big XII.  They don't want to be third to Texas or Oklahoma anymore. They'd rather be 8th somewhere else.  And that's okay.  A&M was 4-1 against the Big XII South last year, but 2-3 against top 25 teams. The last time they squared off against an SEC team they got squashed by LSU. 

I think the Aggies have a little bit of a bruised ego - their best season in 10 years and the only way they can get any attention is to talk about leaving the conference?  On top of that, the only reason the rumors got any momentum is because Rick Perry made the comment not to comment.

The reason no one is talking about A&M's best season in the last ten years is because besides being awesome for them, it's nothing to talk about.  9 win season? Oklahoma has won less than 10 games only twice in the last 10 years.  Texas only once. 

Changing conferences won't change that.  Changing your program is what's going to change that.  Consistent 10 + win seasons are going to change that.  Top 5 recruiting classes are going to change that.  Teams like Texas and Oklahoma (not to mention Alabama, LSU and Florida) didn't build these programs overnight.  I remember the 80's and most of the '90's.  They weren't pretty, but they were ours.

I'd be sad to see the Big XII fall apart, but A&M needs to do what's best for them, in the same way the 'Horns do what's best for Texas. If A&M wants to go and be their own team, make a name for themselves outside of the Big XII and separate of the Longhorns, I wish them well. I just wish they'd admit the real reasons they want to go.

But I guess that's just my Longhorn ego.