In January of this year, four-star wide receiver Justin McCay decided to transfer from Oklahoma to Big 12 rival Kansas.
A handful of months later, another touted player at the same position has decided to leave the Sooners for another (soon-to-be-former) Big 12 rival as well.
read more: collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com
Arkansas’ coaching search. With each passing day it becomes more likely that the Razorbacks will keep an “interim” tag on Taver Johnson, use the remainder of the year to find a long-term replacement for Bobby Petrino, and make that decision official following the 2012 regular season. I believe that course of action to be the wisest. While Petrino is a low-down scoundrel and rotten human being, replacing him as a football coach will be difficult and Arkansas needs to find the right coach, not the right-now coach. Not only would a coach hired before the start of the season have an incredibly condensed time frame with which to learn the team and instill his system, looking for a head coach to start immediately would dramatically limit your pool of candidates. I simply can’t imagine a current head coach ditching his program post-spring to take another job. I know there exists little which is ethically “off limits” in major college football, but I don’t see an “A” list coach doing that to his team. Because of that, if you want to hire a permanent replacement to start immediately, you reduce your candidate pool to coaches out of work and assistants – Arkansas can do better.
Read more: chuckoliver.net
Kevin Sumlin hates yellow beanies and doesn’t want “no names” mixed in with starters
Kevin Sumlin hates yellow helmet beanies and doesn’t want “no names” running around with the starters during Saturday’s spring game at Texas A&M.
In his first spring in College Station, Sumlin plans to go 1′s versus 2′s in the spring game to continue to develop continuity and get the most out of the time on the field.
Read more: coachingsearch.com
The anticipated move to the SEC is beginning to show its affects as Texas A&M announced a sell out of season tickets and now has announced a registration plan for students wanting tickets.
A&M sent a press release on Sunday announcing that a registration process has been put in place to “accommodate the anticipated student demand for 2012 Aggie football tickets.”
Texas A&M has the largest allotment of tickets in the nation for their students. The 30,284 ticket allotment has traditionally been a first come first serve process with no problems.
That was until the 2011 football season when A&M suspended sales of the “sports passes” because of the high demand.
read more: collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com
So here we are again, the annual NFL Draft, where smart men suddenly become incredibly dumb. Example No. 7 trillion: Texas A&M quarterback Ryan Tannehill is suddenly a first-round pick.
If Tannehill moved any faster up the NFL’s draft boards, he’d be Deion Sanders. Starships don’t travel this quickly. Still trying to figure out why. Was it his 1-5 record against ranked teams? Was it his completion percentage that fell last year? Was it his quarterback rating that was lower than Brock Osweiler’s?
Or the 19 starts? Or that not too long ago he was a wide receiver.
Maybe it’s the remarkable pedigree of Big 12 quarterbacks in the NFL, like Chris Simms, Brad Smith, Colt McCoy or Vince Young. They’ve been just swell.
Read more: CBSSports.com
Texas A&M must forfeit $9.31 million in revenue to exit Big 12
COLLEGE STATION – Texas A&M will forfeit $9.31 million in Big 12 revenue, completing the final details in its move to the Southeastern Conference for next year.
The settlement details were released Tuesday afternoon by A&M and the Big 12.
As part of the agreement, the Big 12 will withhold the full $12.41 million that A&M was scheduled to receive as part of its conference distribution for the 2011-12 academic year. But under the settlement, A&M will receive its share of NCAA scholarship grants-in-aid, academic support programs and sports sponsorships, as well as officiating fee reimbursement and bowl travel, among other items.
That totals $3.1 million and will take the actual-out-of-pocket settlement to $9.31 million,according to a source familiar with the process.
By contrast, under similar parameters, Nebraska paid $9.255 million to exit the Big 12 for the Big Ten in 2011. The A&M total is far beyond the $28 million originally estimated by league and school officials, based on Big 12 by-laws that stipulate a 90 percent forfeiture of the final two years of league revenue.
Read more from DallasNews.com
2.29.12
Kicking it with Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin
Kevin Sumlin isn’t a stranger to winning. The two-time national coach of the year finalist recorded a 35-17 record during his four years at Houston, before taking over as Texas A&M’s new coach in December.
But as Sumlin makes his return to College Station, Texas, he’ll do so as a SEC coach. While he hasn’t coached in this league before, he understands that size, strength and speed are on a new level down here.
That’s why he pushed spring practice back two weeks after spring break in order to give strength and conditioning coach Larry Jackson eight full weeks to punish his new players and get them into the proper shape for a full SEC season.
Sumlin took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to ESPN.com about life as the Aggies’ coach before the move to the SEC:
Read more from ESPN.com
2.10.12
Missouri, Texas A&M enter SEC’s world
Remember SEC commissioner Mike Slive’s patented line whenever somebody would ask him about expansion back when the college football landscape was changing before our very eyes?
“We’re going to be strategic and thoughtful,” Slive would repeat when quizzed about the SEC’s interest in broadening its horizons.
All the while, Nebraska was in the process of changing addresses from the Big 12 to the Big Ten. The Pac-12 (then the Pac-10) was reportedly on the verge of becoming a super-conference with the addition of Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
There were more expansion rumors and more possible new configurations thrown out there for conferences than the number of touchdowns Alabama’s defense allowed this past season.
The SEC didn’t bury its head in the sand.
Slive remains coy when asked with whom the SEC had discussions and how everything played out, but he was discreetly in the middle of the expansion fray.
Read more from ESPN.com
2.9.12
TEXAS A&M AND MISSOURI WORTH AT LEAST $114 MILLION A YEAR TO SEC NETWORK
This week Outkick the Coverage will take a look at the Southeastern Conference’s future, particularly at a massive decision that is looming for the SEC and its primary network partner ESPN, whether to start a network or not. In 2009 the SEC signed a 15 year rights agreement with ESPN and CBS that extends until 2023-24. That agreement gives CBS the rights to a single first choice game every week while ESPN retains virtually every other right. (Stop the emails, when local Fox affiliates, Comcast, or other networks carry cames, those are sub-rights that ESPN has sold to those networks. The only exception? Each football team retains one game a year, generally the worst, which it can place on pay-per-view).
Read more from Outkickthecoverage.com
1.24.12
Petrino wants to keep Texas A&M game in Arlington
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP)—Bobby Petrino wants Arkansas to be an annual presence in Texas.
The Razorbacks will play their second game in the state this season when they face Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 6, and the Arkansas coach is intent on staying in the Dallas area in future seasons.
The No. 7 Razorbacks (10-2) defeated Texas A&M 42-38 in Cowboys Stadium on Oct. 1, the third game of the 10-year series between the former Southwest Conference rivals. The Razorbacks are 3-0 against the Aggies in the Southwest Classic since the series began in 2009.
The future of the series has been in doubt since Texas A&M joined the Southeastern Conference in September, though Petrino made it clear after Saturday’s bowl practice that he wants the game to remain an annual event at the neutral site.
Read more from Rivals.com
12.19.11
