In a clever move sure to keep you huddled around the water cooler at work arguing for hours, A&M coach Kevin Sumlin and Texas' Charlie Strong have both expressed a desire to renew the rivalry, ESPN.com reported Tuesday morning.
"Now, moving into Year 4 and listening to our former students and our alumni base and knowing a lot of Texas alums, it's important that we play again," Sumlin said. "I think it will happen somewhere down the road. The tough part for both parties, when we moved, was scheduling. The first two years we scrambled just to get anybody to play, and the SEC hadn't solidified their schedule until last year. We were at the mercy of whoever would play us.
"Now that we've solidified what the SEC's scheduling theory is going to be, you've seen us become more aggressive with our nonconference schedule, and that was the knock on us early on. People sometimes take scheduling for granted and say, 'Play this team.' They don't know the process. But I think the Texas series will happen. I just don't know when."
The article later quotes Sumlin as reinforcing that he was never against continuing the series and saying that the game's importance to the alumni of both schools is what should dictate whether it resumes.
His counterpart in Austin seems to concur.
"That game is so much a part of this state," said Strong, who it's fair to note is from Arkansas. "Over 100 years, we've played that game. Why stop it now because we're in different conferences? At some point, when it's right for everybody with the different schedules, I would love to play Texas A&M again.
"Let me win some games first," he added. "Then I can push it. I don't know if I want to go walking into College Station right now."
(Smart, though in that case we may be waiting a while.)
Regimes at both schools have undergone complete overhauls since the series, which began in 1894 and has been played 118 times, went on hiatus.
Author Chris Low does well to note that, despite that, new Texas Athletic Director Steve Patterson adopted predecessor DeLoss Dodds' trademark hauteur about the series immediately after his arrival and A&M Senior Associate AD Jason Cook had previously implied the teams' only meeting would be in a bowl or playoff game.
Yet, the quotes from Sumlin and Strong come on the heels of the Monday revelation that the Aggies and Longhorns will meet again in baseball in 2016 and 2017, seemingly opening a floodgate of dialogue about the two arch-rivals who have repeatedly attempted to distance themselves from each other since 2012.
See the full article here:
Charlie Strong, Kevin Sumlin both want Texas Longhorns-Texas A&M Aggies rivalry back
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