Tiger Rag finally explains A&M series and what happened

Thought that was common knowledge?

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“What happened, and I was responsible for it to be honest, was we went from seven league games to eight league games,” Dean continued. “And it put a strain on us when we had to go there (to College Station). We needed that extra home game for financial reasons.”

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How he forgets that he hired shitty coaches that dropped season ticket purchases way down and we had less television exposure, which is really the reason we had financial strains.

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didn't the contract just expire in 1995 and we went our separate ways ? it was from 1986-1995 ... what does he mean he had to cut it off two years premature ?? we played the 10 games ..

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Joe Dean lost too many brain cells in his scuba driving incidents.

Hmm...I could use some pro bono hours

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In reality, it was sloppy lawyering on A&M's part for allowing such a vague term on such an important part of a contract.

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Not necessarily. Sometimes you want the contract to be vague so you can take a position in a renegotiation. Had this not contained the word "suitable," LSU would have fulfilled its contract without question. The word suitable allowed A&M to argue that they were entitled to LDs because the opponent LSU found for them was not "suitable." So A&M tried to hold LSU up for more money.

It sounds like LSU called their bluff and dared them to sue LSU, which A&M chose not to do after presumably running some cost benefit analysis.

So the Aggies lost the contractual poker game with LSU, just like they will lose the Cotton Bowl in 25 days.

I was at the 33-17 game and Tom Hodson was a RS Freshman and Harvey Williams was a True Freshman. Tom Hodson played like a 5 year Senior that night. The Defense was great!! I think A&M was like 3 or 5 in the nation.

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I was at the 33-17 game and Tom Hodson was a RS Freshman and Harvey Williams was a True Freshman. Tom Hodson played like a 5 year Senior that night. The Defense was great!! I think A&M was like 3 or 5 in the nation.

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Hodson was a RS freshman in 1995? word?

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I was at the 33-17 game and Tom Hodson was a RS Freshman and Harvey Williams was a True Freshman. Tom Hodson played like a 5 year Senior that night. The Defense was great!! I think A&M was like 3 or 5 in the nation.

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They reference the 33-17 games as the 1995 game in College Station. That was Kevin Faulk's first game

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didn't the contract just expire in 1995 and we went our separate ways ? it was from 1986-1995 ... what does he mean he had to cut it off two years premature ?? we played the 10 games ..

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I believe they had signed a two-year contract extension. (Or 4...?)

In any case LSU wanted out of the contract extension. And as Aggie stated, LSU put up NWSU, and the Aggies declined.

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Unless you can provide a link to the contract or some other reputable source,

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To get the complete truth, you would have to have access to the contracts and other documents and take testimonies under the penalty of perjury. Below is the A&M AD's side of the story (this was from one of Groff's ask the AD write-ups). I don't know exactly when this was published, but it is during Bertman's reign and it isn't on line anymore"

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"We had a contract with LSU dated Sept. 19, 1985, covering 10 years beginning with the 1988 football season. On my first day as Athletics Director (Sept. 1, 1993), I received a phone call from LSU requesting to cancel the last four years of the contract (1994-97). Texas A&M had no interest in doing so, and I indicated that to the LSU Athletics Director at the time. As a result LSU and Texas A&M played in 1994 and 1995; however, LSU refused to play us in 1996 and 1997. According to the contract, LSU should have paid Texas A&M a sum of $100,000 for each game. They offered to pay the penalty for one of the games but not both. As the federal court with jurisdiction would have been in New Orleans, our University lawyers recommended that we accept their offer of half the rightful amount. I begrudgingly agreed to do so. As a result, I have never since felt comfortable rescheduling the series."

"However, in the last six months, both an Associate AD and the new Athletics Director at LSU have contacted me about possibly renewing the series, and we have indicated that we do have some interest in a home-and-home situation. Reviewing our future schedules and keeping with our scheduling philosophy of one marquee, one name and one buy game, the earliest we would be able to accomplish this would be somewhere in the 2009 to 2012 seasons. We play Wyoming, Clemson and Utah in ’04; Clemson, Florida State and Southwest Texas State in ’05; Florida State and Troy State in ’06; Miami in ’07; and Arkansas State, Miami and Air Force in ’08. In 2009 we have Air Force on the schedule, and in 2010 and 2011 we have Michigan State. We have no intention of entering into a long-term agreement with anyone at this point, as scheduling has become a situation of gaining national exposure for recruiting purposes. Currently, we are looking at placing some west coast teams on the schedule, as that is one area that we currently do not have covered at the present time."

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Without a doubt LSU initiated the cancellation. Several years ago there was quite a bit of discussion on the Lair about this. One of the guys was quite knowledgeable, had some documentation, and may have been in LSU's AD. I didn't document it, but I'll share what I remember. I'm a little fuzzy on some of it, but the gist will be correct.

As has been stated , when the SEC expanded to 12 teams, LSU needed to cancel the A&M contract because of the need to have 7 home games year in and year out (11 games back then. 4 SEC home games and 3 OOC home games was the only way to get to 7). I think (I don't know) that LSU probably initiated cancellation with Grof's predessor. The lair poster lef the impressing that this put A&M in a bind and they asked LSU to help them out for a couple of years and we did. However, I suspect that the suitable replacement clause was the real problem.

I asked why didn't we owe the cancellation fee that A&M claimed and the Lair poster had an answer that satisfied me at the time. I don't remember the details, but I think it had something to do with a contract extension. The A&M AD says the contract begins with the 1988 football season. However, we started playing A&M in 1986. My understanding is that we had an original 10 year contract with the terms referred to. Subsequently, we signed an evergreen extension that had different cancellation terms. LSU's position is that we fullfilled the original contract and cancelled during the evergreen portion and paid them off as required by those terms. I remember the poster posting the contract clause about notification (this is why I thought he may have been in the AD). I may be wrong on the details, but the gist is that he convinced me that we acted correctly in accordance to the contract.

Now it is possible that we had a 2 year deal with A&M before the 10 year deal started. This would mean that we hadn't actually fullfilled the 10 yr deal, but I have never seen any evidence of this. The A&M AD's comment about them choosing not to sue due to the fact that the FEDERAL district court is in New Orleans is absolute bullshite. If the contracts state what he says, then it would have been a slam dunk. I believe it is just a bullshite cover story.

Like I said in the beginning, you would need the actual contracts and sworn testimony to get to the truth here, but the LSU side has always been consistent and for the most part, makes the most sense.