Originally Posted by
Scoop27
From the Houston Chronicle
COLLEGE STATION – Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin, a chief catalyst behind the Aggies’ move to the Southeastern Conference, wants to make one thing clear: He’s still all for A&M playing Texas in football, “anytime, anywhere.”
“I said it before, and I value my integrity,” Loftin told me on Tuesday night. “I said it two years ago and I meant it then. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t play each other, if we want to. I think they (Texas) will at some point in time feel like it’s the right thing to do, as well, and we’ll get there.”
I had requested Loftin for an interview on his memories as a student of A&M playing at LSU in the late 1960s (that story is coming on Friday, with A&M playing at LSU a day later), and along the way the visit turned to Aggies-Longhorns.
“I’ve always said ‘anytime, anywhere,’ although others (in the A&M administration) are not saying it that way anymore,” Loftin reiterated. “I still think that, left to ourselves, we will find a way to get together. We’ve already played them in other NCAA sports – swimming and diving had a meet with them (this October).”
Loftin, bottom line, believes A&M-UT football in the regular season will eventually happen again (as it did almost annually from 1894-2011) as a ballyhooed nonconference showdown.
“Some of the feelings and passions (from the Aggies’ 2012 shift to the SEC) are now beginning to get a little bit moderated,” said Loftin, who’s stepping down as A&M president in January to return to the classroom. “I think over time there will be an engagement … that will allow us to appropriately play each other as nonconference rivals in a variety of sports.”
This all comes (back) to light because earlier this month A&M senior associate athletic director Jason Cook told me regarding the Longhorns, “We hope to play them again in a BCS or playoff game at some point,” quite the opposite of Loftin’s assertion from two years prior.
While Cook offered no further explanation at the time, the message was evident: A&M, under the direction of outspoken chancellor John Sharp, no longer intended to schedule the Longhorns in football in the regular season, even if UT was up for it.
The idea that the Aggies and Longhorns might someday meet again in the regular season had been sparked by UT announcing it was hiring Steve Patterson from Arizona State as its new athletic director, in replacing longtime AD DeLoss Dodds.