A&M's President: Inside Account of Realignment, 2010-2011 (updated)

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That’s where I first began to have some degree (of concern) on where the stance of the conference was. In the fall of 2009, we began to hear rumors about UT meeting and talking with the Pac-10. I was actually in Austin in December 2009 meeting with (University of Texas president) Bill Powers. At that point, I had asked everyone but him to leave the room so we could talk privately. I asked him if there was any conversation between him and the Pac-10 and his answer basically was, “I can’t talk about that.” The next month, he was in College Station, and we met in my office. I had the same question, and he gave me the same answer.

Go forward to the April (2010) timeframe…I got a call from (Pac-10 commissioner) Larry Scott indicating he wanted to come see me. Scott shows up here, and we have a meeting. Basically they had been working for months, and he had schedules of not just football but, basketball, soccer and baseball, and they had been working hard on this thing. He did a presentation for us on here’s how we are going to do this. I obviously began discussing this privately with the Board of Regents, and the basic direction I got from them was, “Look, we’ll probably get an offer from the Pac-10 to go join them along with five other schools in the Big 12.” The chairman of the board said to me, “One option is no option. You better figure out what things A&M could do besides follow Texas and other schools to the Pac-10.”

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After I had this conversation with the board, I made a phone call to (SEC commissioner) Mike Slive and said, “Mike we need to talk.” Ultimately, he came here to see me, and we had a discussion about the SEC as a possible home for Texas A&M.

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