Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Aggies play SEC “anticipation” game like pros, bolt Big XII

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image Texas A&M is learning fast.

According to a report in the San Antonio Express-News, an announcement regarding the Aggies widely expected defection to the Southeastern Conference could come as early as today, but certainly no later than… next week.

The collective groans of SEC fans can be heard from Gainesville to Fayetteville.

Clearly however, Big XII schools aren’t accustomed to the intense glare of media scrutiny applied by the media covering the SEC. SEC fans are among the most voracious consumers of news regarding their teams, their league and goings-on that might affect them. We want our news like we want our football and if somebody gets off the turf looking through their helmet earhole, so be it.

The Express-News report from Brent Zwernmann shows A&M was thrown for a loop when the New York Times’ Pete Thamel reported that the school had notified the league that it was ready to begin the divorce proceedings:


“While we appreciate the tremendous interest in Texas A&M's conference exploration, it is not our intent to provide a play-by-play of complex discussions in the media,” university spokesman Jason Cook said in a statement. “The proliferation of social media — as well as the pressure for reporters to be ‘first' — has certainly fueled the rumors and speculation of what our next steps may be.”


Understandable. The school isn’t interesting in allowing the negotiations to be live blogged by the media, bloggers or Twitter users. But indicating that the league or the school has an imminent announcement that could come today or certainly no later than next week…  Why, that’s just SEC homer greatness, isn’t it?

Exit Question: It’s one thing to wish avoid sharing details and playing the anticipation game. It’s quite another to lawyer up, play hardball and refuse to release any information at all. Which is what the conference appears to be doing, according to this report from Bryan Fischer of CBSSports.com. How’s that going to play with the SEC media bloodhounds?

UPDATE: Boom. Here’s the announcement. Texas A&M is now a free agent.

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