Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne reached out to his counterpart at the state capitol on Friday afternoon regarding the continuation of the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry after the Aggies make their 2012 move to the SEC and was told that the Longhorns have no room on their non-conference schedule to play the Aggies at least through 2018.
As Texas A&M coaches also reached out to Texas coaches in other sports, only the tennis team has currently replied to requests to continue the rivalry in those sports as well, declining the offer to play A&M.
Meanwhile, state senator Tommy Williams, a Republican from The Woodlands, is starting to make noise in the legislature, saying that he will file legislation that would instruct both schools to continue the rivalry. While it's understandable that the legislature declined to get involved in attempting to keep A&M in the Big 12, why get involved now and tell Texas what to do?
After all, as DeLoss Dodds has said in recent weeks, A&M was the one who left the conference, destabilizing it to the point where it barely survived once again. If the Aggies so desperately wanted to continue the rivalry with Texas, why leave the conference? Perhaps Dodds and the Texas administration are declining to play the Aggies as payback for bailing on the league and if so, don't the Longhorns have that right? This is the consequence of making the decision to leave. Own it, Aggies. Of course, it's probably still more convenient to blame everything on Texas, as always.
Earlier in the week, interim commissioner Chuck Neinas indicated that the Longhorns are not currently considering newest Big 12 member TCU as a potential opponent on Thanksgiving, leaving the opponent for that date up in the air, though Texas will continue to play a T-day game. Texas Tech has expressed a desire to take A&M's spot.