Not sure how I feel about this merger, so I'm going to list out positives and negatives for A&M, Big 12, and the state of Texas...
Positives
-Pac 10 research grants and collaborations with Stanford, Cal, Washington, etc...
-Huge TV footprint covering essentially all USA west of Mississippi River
-Increased academic reputation
-Allows conference to negotiate a large TV contract due to premium athletics (Stanford, UCLA, Cal, USC, A&M, UT, OU all in top 25 of
Director's Cup standings) and prestigious football programs (USC, UT, and OU with A&M, UCLA, and Cal to a lesser extent)
-Pac 10 hotties
Negatives
-Culturally, Texas and to an even greater extent Oklahoma are nothing like California or the Pacific seaboard at all; seeing the Fighting Texas Aggie Band or the Longhorn Band in their
Porter Wagoner uniforms in LA or Seattle would just be... weird. Just the way of life and overall outlook on life over there is much different than it is here.
-Travel/Time differences.. while not a big deal for football as Texas teams would only likely travel to the Pacific Coast once a year, other sports that play each team home and away and have much less revenue will be a problem from the beginning that could lead to schools dropping certain sports. Also, with the Pacific coast two hours behind us a 7:00pm PT home game would likely end around 1:00am here.
-Not much zeal for an A&M vs. Washington State game, though I guess it's about the same as Iowa State now...
-Opens up the state of Texas to recruiting by now conference rivals in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington while still having OU, Ok St, and Colorado recruit as well
Just a few of the reasons that stood out to me the most at least and there's just so many different angles to looking at the whole situation that it's tough to choose which direction is best and why I don't envy school presidents/chancellors/ADs at all right now..
As for what I want to happen.. sort of...
Athletic wise, I want A&M to go to the SEC with Texas or OU and create an SEC West of A&M, UT/OU, Arkansas, LSU, MSU, Ole Miss, and Vandy.. if UT doesn't go then keeping the Lone Star Showdown and Red River Rivalry games would give A&M and OU one of the best schedules in football year in and year out.
Academically, if Texas were to join Big 10 and A&M by association was taken along, that would be huge in regards to grant money and research collaboration. The Pac 10 is also a step up from the Big 12 academically and would result in larger research grants for the flagship universities of Texas.
So A&M goes to SEC for athletics and Big 10 for academics and gets the best of both worlds and leaves one shiny, happy Texans fan, just like Vinny.
