I came across this story on our Sooner blog.
Apparently Bill Byrne has the Hefty bags out and is girding his legs and loins for battle. I always wonder, when Bill means business, does he go for the CinchSak or BlackOut? Maybe SteelSak.
Anyway, the Aggies have gone to the NCAA and asked them to invoke the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act bylaw 11.2.3.4 and have the Longhorn Network classified as "institutional publication" thereby making it an "athletics representative of the institution".
From Dennis Dodds @ CBS Sportsline:
The 1994 interpretation dealt most mostly with what was, at the time, an explosion among specialty print publications. Several newsletters, magazines and weeklies sprung up in the 1990s that covered individual schools' sports. Several of those publications reported recruiting news in varying degrees as part of their coverage.
You know, the sort of thing former Aggie Coach Dennis Franchione used to put out.
Sorry, laughing... SO hard...
OK, back to the matter at hand.
Crimson opines this way:
The presumption seems to be that this will all blow over, at least for now, and cooler heads will prevail. Though I'm not necessarily inclined to believe that. To be honest, I'm just not sure I see the powers that be at Texas responding well to a threat for the powers that be at A&M. I'm not sure why Texas, or perhaps more importantly ESPiN, are going to respond well to being told what to do. ESPiN clearly holds Dan Beebe, the Big XII, and apparently the NCAA in very little regard considering they've been told to hold off on any work towards broadcasting high school football. So their response is to go sign a contract with two TX high schools.
Does anyone really think Texas isn't the one in the room thinking to themselves "All these chumps need us, we don't need them"? If, and it's the king of all ifs at the moment, A&M really does have this standing offer from the SEC that all their
delusionalfans claim they have then it's time to accept it. It's clearly the only way you're ever going to be happy, if that's even possible, and it's the only thing that is going to end this. The first domino that has been perilously teetering on the edge of falling for over a year now needs that final nudge, so sack up and push the damn thing already.
Do we really have two high schools under contract? Awesome.
Dave Brown had this to say:
"We'll just have to let the process work itself out," ESPN's Brown said last week. "We would have liked to have done them [high school games], one game a week, two games a week. If we have to go in another direction we will."
At some point does any semblance of comity cease to exist? Does this thing just blow up?
Dodds also reported:
Texas has long been speculated to become an independent if it isn't happy with the Big 12. (Although it has never been addressed what would happen with Texas' highly-competitive minor sports.) The school came within a heartbeat of joining the Pac-10 in 2010. A portion of Texas' contract with ESPN states that if Texas is not a member of a conference, ESPN would have 60 days to make an exclusive deal for those TV rights. It would have 48 hours to match any competing offer. That information was reported by the Austin American-Statesman after a Freedom of Information request.
We have the BC Legal Department filing our own request. I want to read this contract.
Pass the Hefty bags. It's going to be a bumpy ride.