Texas A&M Just Now Getting Around to Realizing How Badly They Are Screwed

I've never been to College Station. Even though I now live less than two hours away, I've never had the desire to see the state of Texas' version of an agricultural school. I assume everything is made of materials that cost one dollar more or one dollar less than the buildings at UT-Austin, depending on which school was in the mood to win the insignificant pissing contest of that day.

I'm sure it's a fine place, filled with many fine people. However, unlike the rest of the country, they fall within the area of those most likely to subscribe to the upcoming Longhorn Network, the all-University of Texas channel from ESPN, and have been subjected to constant reminders of its debut for several months now. If you haven't seen the commercial for the network, here it is and your brain would be correct if it just said to you, "Man, I hope they use McConaughey for the voice-over."



So, it's a little surprising they're just now getting around to learning more about the Longhorn Network, and doing so behind closed doors, presumably to hide very important and powerful people's "Oh shit" faces from public viewing.  Specifically, they're going to address the airing Big 12 (I HATE YOUR NAME SO MUCH) games on the network, and, most importantly, the possibility of showing high school football games with Texas branding all over that channel.  Of course, under the Big 12 (HONESTLY) TV agreement with Fox Sports, each school is free to start its own network, but the Aggie Network certainly would not carry as much recognition and power, or command of cash money, like that of the Longhorn Network.

Texas A&M already falls behind Texas in most pecking orders, and with the unleashing of the Longhorn Network, that distance is going to grow.  What the regents of Texas A&M should have learned by now, especially during the Big 12's bend-over-backwards efforts to keep Texas in the conference last summer, or at least realize during this meeting, is that unless Texas A&M gets away from Texas, there is no Texas A&M.  There's just the other school in Texas (No, no.  Not TCU.  The other one after that.).