I was delighted to learn that the Southeastern Conference (SEC) has unanimously approved my alma mater, Texas A&M, to become its 13th member, and when word almost immediately surfaced that a Big 12 school was throwing a tantrum about it, backing out of their earlier approval of A&M’s departure and threatening legal action to prevent the Aggies from leaving, I assumed it was Texas that had the issue.
Come to find out, it’s Baylor.
Baylor?! Seriously?!
Baylor is worried that if A&M leaves the Big 12–and it will–that it will be the end of the conference–and it will. If it’s the end of the conference then the little Baptist school in Waco, Texas, loses the big bucks that it has raked in for as long as I can remember by riding the coat tails of real football schools.
Until last year’s 7-6 campaign that ended with a 38-14 bashing at the hands of Illinois in the Texas Bowl, Baylor hadn’t had a winning season since 1995 –the last year of the Southwest Conference–when the Bears went 7-4. Through the 2010 season, the Bears have a combined 50-115 record since becoming members of the Big 12. Aside from the occasional blip, such as the 1974 Southwest Conference championship (followed by a 41-20 hammering at the hands of Penn State in the 1975 Cotton Bowl), Baylor has been the perennial doormat of both conferences to which it has belonged.
And this is the position from which it is trying to throw its weight around?!
A move to the SEC will, in my opinion, make A&M a better football program. In essence, Baylor wants the Aggies–and Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and Texas and Texas Tech, since Nebraska and Colorado have already bailed–to stick around and play substandard conference opponents like the Bears, just so Baylor can continue to milk the free cash cow.
No, thank you.
This is simply an act of pettiness on Baylor’s part. The Bears have nothing to offer the Big 12 or A&M other than a headache and bad publicity, and they have absolutely no leverage from which to force a change of heart in College Station. Nobody cares if you’re mad, Baylor.
Even if it did work, how awkward would things be for the unwanted houseguest?
“We are certainly pleased with the action taken last night by the presidents and chancellors of the Southeastern Conference to unanimously accept Texas A&M as the league’s 13th member,” said Texas A&M President R. Bowen Loftin on Sept. 7. “However, this acceptance is conditional, and we are disappointed in the threats made by one of the Big 12 member institutions to coerce Texas A&M into staying in Big 12 Conference. These actions go against the commitment that was made by this university and the Big 12 on Sept. 2. We are working diligently to resolve any and all issues as outlined by the SEC.”
Loftin doesn’t sound like a guy who wants to be roommates with Baylor anymore after this.
It’s a surreal example of biting the hand that has fed you for a hundred years. Baylor would never have tasted any of that Big 12 cash without the likes of A&M. And of all people to be the face of Baylor’s ridiculously childish hissy fit, it’s Kenneth Starr of the Clinton-Lewinsky ordeal. How appropriate.
Dan Wetzel points out something that I vividly remember back in the mid-1990s: Baylor had no problem leaving Houston, Rice, Southern Methodist University, and Texas Christian University in the dirt to tag along with big brothers Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech in joining the Big 12.
Perhaps Baylor should see if Conference USA–which ironically includes Houston, Rice, and SMU–will have it. That’s more the Bears’ level of play, anyway.
I have Oct. 15 circled on my calendar now. That’s when Baylor comes to visit Kyle Field and my Aggies. Here’s to one last stomping of the Bears before we head southeast.