Recently I stumbled upon a link from an Aggie friend of mine to an article blaming Dodds for the end of the 117 year Longhorn and Aggie tradition. Find it here.

Seriously? That was some poorly written partisan tripe right there.  Shame on me for clicking on a link to TexAgs, I know.

There's a huge difference between trying to come to a viable option for yourself and fellow state schools such as we did by exploring the Pac (a move that was never to be an order for Aggie to follow, but an option for everyone to consider), and reaffirming your commitment to a conference only to do a 180 on your word less than a year later and r-u-n-n-o-f-t for what you may think is a better deal.

Bottom line is this is the movie Clue. And everyone has their own "…and that's how it could have happened...", but here's the truth:

American manufacturing declined as we moved toward a service based economy.

Rustbelt/Big10 state populations decline as manufacturing jobs dwindle and the Sunbelt continues its massive growth rates.  

Delaney and the Big10 want to explore expansion to stay ahead of the inevitable population curves.

Mizzou says "ooo Ooo pick us" because they see it, legitimately, as an upward move. Much like Nebraska they were tired of the competitive imbalance of the divisions and the political clout migrating southward in the big12 vs big 8.

Nebraska, upset it's no longer the king of its own conference hill, says "hey! Not so fast, if you're going to pillage our conference, we want to be the ones that move on to greener pastures"

Big 10 says "hey, Nebraska makes for a great add"

Larry Scott and the Pac decide to attack this realignment issue as an aggressive play to help their brand. They come discuss the matter with a number of people in the big12, namely UT and DeLoss Dodds, as UT is undeniably (even to the Aggies) the crown jewel to bring into anyone’s conference fold.

DeLoss entertains the notion of moving to the Pac *with all our "buddies"*, as an option to bring to the collective table for all those said buddies (likely with a strong urging to them that we do it, only if we can't save the big12).

Colorado and Pac jump the gun to be sure Baylor doesn't get a seat at that table making the salvation of the Big12 look less and less likely…increasing the pressure to take the Pac deal.

Meanwhile Aggie (I might add well within their right mind ...or as close as they get to one) say "we don't want to go west, that makes no sense for our particular institution"

*Now here’s where shit hit the fan and logic went AWOL*

Aggie then jumps the nuclear fridge over Arthur Fonzarelli while riding a shark and comes to this sentiment: "how dare you even discuss our future and what is best for us? You're not our father; we'll never rule the universe with you!" And gets butthurt about the whole thing.

Everyone left comes to their senses and says "let’s make a pact. Were committed to the big12"

But Aggie is still stewing. Within the year they go back on that commitment without anything changing from the disclosures known when recommitting. Everyone was made aware that UT was creating a network.  Hell, Dodds had gone to Byrne years before to ask him to make it a co-venture.  The only change here was that UT got a much larger pay day out of it than anticipated.  "How dare tu, those arrogant pricks.  They only care about themselves and will sell us down the river if they have the chance" and Aggie strikes off to find a new set of friends/bullies to play with. Even though that is actually the opposite of what UT wants, because UT recognized that what’s best for them is to maintain that relationship…it’s why UT wanted them among others to potentially head west. Motivated by self interest? Absolutely, but not motivated to leave everyone else behind in self interest.

Aggie makes many different excuses about unfair competitive advantages, and potential rule breaking by showing high school games and so forth.  They bring up the tin foil hat theory that UT is just planning on going independent and will screw them eventually and this is just defending themselves preemptively.  But when it comes down to it, all of those issues are addressed and Aggie still wants out.

Mizzou, still discontent, and now more so with the conference once again on the brink thanks to Aggie this time, also finds a way out.

UT had worked hard in recent years to line up new out of conference games and had no more room out of conference to fit the Aggies and has replaced them and mizzou within conference so no extra out of conference games added due to shortened conference schedule either.

Aggie blames Texas for it all and calls us the immature and petty ones while in truth only they, and to a lesser extent mizzou and Nebraska, ever acted entirely in their own interest without concern for other member institutions.  It was them that put us in an untenable position of either canceling existing contracts with other schools to fit them back on the schedule (and reward their abrasive and vindictive behavior), or ‘letting a 117 year rivalry die’.

I apologize for any formatting errors as this is my first fan post.  Also, I realize that the correct response to this if any is likely, "too long, did not read."  I needed, however, to get that off my chest and ask ...is there something I'm missing here?  Dodds and UT are not without blame at all, but....my god if there's a temper tantrum being thrown, it surely isn't DeLoss's.

Thanks, and Hook 'Em.