Texas A&M to the SEC would only be the first rivalry to disappear

We knew that Texas A&M was interested in the SEC and vice versa thanks to this column from Andy Staples late Wednesday night.

Tonight, we found out from Chip Brown, the reporter for Orangebloods.com that has been owning realignment from Texas' end, just how serious Texas A&M is about going to the SEC. I'm not going to go into to much detail (click the link), but Gene Stallings -- the former Alabama football coach that won the 1992 national title -- is not a regent for Texas A&M an is pushing hard for the Aggies to move east, not west. The SEC wants A&M and Texas, broadening their scope for TV, and recruiting, into the Lone Star State.

The SEC is pushing hard to get both Texas A&M and Texas, but it seems like the Longhorns, along with Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech, are firmly committed to joining the Pac 10 11 16 league on the west coast.

This right here is exactly the problem with this expansion.

It would be a travesty if Texas A&M and Texas weren't in the same conference. College sports would be a joke if these two teams didn't play at least once every single season in every single sport.

Look, I understand that history is history, the past is the past, and tradition in this day and age is irrelevant. Nebraska, a charter member of the Big 8 that has been competing against schools like Missouri and Kansas since 1892, is leaving for the Big Ten without looking back because competing for 120 years doesn't matter when bridges have been burned and there is money to be made.

But Nebraska no longer had a real rival in the Big XII in football, and in basketball (which is irrelevant itself) the Cornhuskers were irrelevant.

Texas and Texas A&M matter. The Longhorns are always a top five football team, and have developed into one of the premier college basketball programs. Texas A&M became an offensive powerhouse in football under Mike Leach, and in basketball they are consistently a team that will battle for a top four or five spot in the Big XII standings and an NCAA Tournament berth.

When these two get together, it is must see TV in both sports.

I don't watch college football. I watch Texas play Texas A&M just about every year.

And now, because Texas A&M is tired of playing second fiddle to Texas and because Texas is tired of A&M believing they are allowed to think independently, we may end up losing this rivalry.

Its not the only one.

• Many believe that, once the dust settles, Kansas will end up in the Big East. Kansas State won't. So much for that rivalry.
• Barring a miracle (or a disaster, depending on how you look at it), Missouri and Kansas, and to a lesser degree Kansas and Texas, will likely end up in separate leagues. There goes another must-watch game.
• The Big East isn't in the clear, either. Syracuse and Pitt both have been rumored to be heading to the Big Ten for months, although some of that chatter has cooled of late. If either of those two leave, a lot off great matchups -- Pitt-West Virginia; Syracuse-UConn; Syracuse-Georgetown -- will cease to exist.
• And now, there is some talk of Maryland heading to the Big Ten. Its not that long ago that Duke-Maryland basketball games were almost as good as the Duke-UNC rivalry.
  

Granted, there will also be some great matchups created. Who wouldn't want to see Kansas come to the Big East, especially those of us that actually care about basketball? Texas/Oklahoma and USC should always be entertaining football games.

But there is a difference between entertaining games and rivalry games. If two top ten teams meet up in any sport, it will be intriguing to watch. Who doesn't enjoy two teams competing at the highest level of sport.

In a rivalry game, its not just that the opponents both want to win. The two teams genuinely hate each other, and that is fantastic television. The fans are rowdier, the atmosphere is more frenzied, and the players not only want to leave with a victory, they want to do so while giving their opponent a black eye.

That passion is what college sports is about.

Playing for the love of the game, regardless of what game that is.

Sadly, the conference commissioners apparently let their paper chase blind them of that fact.