I have spent the past three years helping to build up this blog and it has been a great time. Recently, another sports entity approached me with an offer that was simply too good to turn down. I accepted a position with them and will not be writing for this blog any longer. It is kind of ironic that I am leaving as one of the most interesting sports stories in the history of Texas A&M is going down as I am typing out this post. As I said last summer, I truly believe a move to the SEC will be a game changer for A&M and I look forward to watching this transformation occur. I thought my last post would be the typical deal where I would thank the readers and talk about the good times. Then I was blindsided by some of the events of the day.

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Reports from practice are that Shaun Ward is abusing the OL. I heard that he made Cedric Ogbuehi look silly and it impressed me because Ogbuehi is a hell of an athlete who made a name for himself by stonewalling Jackson Jeffcoat in high school. The fact that Ward got the better of him after Ogbuehi has spent a year in the program is impressive. Then comes word that Ward was beating Luke Joeckel in practice and my ears really perked up. I have thought all along that Ward would redshirt because he arrived during the summer with an extra 15 pounds of bad weight on his frame. It sounds like the kid is too talented to redshirt. Expect him to contribute right away. 

Billy Liucci is reporting on Texags that the Texas A&M BOR has moved up their meeting to Monday. With the SEC presidents meeting on Sunday to discuss adding A&M to the conference, the BOR meeting will be to approve the SEC's offer to become a member of the conference. This is a brilliant political move by President Loftin and the BOR. A&M will be in the SEC before the legislature has any kind of meetings about the issue. Once again, Loftin and A&M are three steps ahead of tu and Deloss Dodds.

"If you can't beat 'em. join em." That is how the old saying goes. In tu's case, the most appropriate motto is, "if you can't beat 'em and are afraid to join 'em, conspire against them." After months of ignoring Texas A&M's move towards the SEC, now that the time of the move is upon us, tu is trying to block it. Last night word came out that tu has hired the PR/lobbying firm HillCo Partners to try to smear A&M and lobby members of the state legislature to block our move to the SEC. It is extremely humorous to me that the same people who claimed we never had an offer to join the SEC, the SEC would never want us by ourselves, tu tells us what to do etc, is not doing everything in their power to keep us from joining this conference that supposedly did not want us.

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The Texas A&M Board of Regents have a meeting set up for August 22nd. At this meeting the regents will vote on whether to join the SEC. Unless something substantial happens in the next eleven days, I expect the BOR to rubber stamp the move to the SEC in 2012. According to Billy Liucci, we will either see an announcement that we are joining the SEC before the meeting with the BOR approving it, or the announcement will come after the vote is held. If the announcement is made before the meeting it will be similar to when we hired Mike Sherman where his hiring was announced, contingent upon approval of the BOR. I would like to commend Billy Liucci and his staff over at Texags, and Davis Sandhop of the Aggie Websider who have been miles ahead of every other mainstream media outlet on this SEC story. Yet another example of how aggressive members of the web media are leaving the traditional news mediums in their dust. 

The NCAA has ruled against broadcasting high school games on school or conference networks. This means that in theory the LHN cannot go forward with plans to broadcast high school games. If history is any precedent, ESPN will ignore the ruling and press on with finding high school content to put on the LHN. There have been two separate moratoriums made against televising high school games this year and each time tu and ESPN have ignored them. The LHN has continued to sign up high schools to contracts to broadcast their football games this fall, and has continued to try to find a conference game to broadcast on the LHN. The bottom line is that ESPN cares only about their bottom line, and they know no one is going to watch a bunch of 3rd tier rights broadcasts. They need increased football content to try to recoup their sizable investment. While I expect ESPN and the LHN to ignore this ruling, I think you will see high school coaches refusing the overtures from the LHN. If they allow their program to be broadcast on the LHN they are risking the college eligibility of every football player on their team. For this reason, I do not think you will see any high school broadcasts on the LHN any time soon.

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Just received a phone call from a source that has been very reliable in the past. I was told that A&M will make an announcement that they will leave the Big 12 and join SEC some time before September 1st. So much for waiting until the spring. I assumed the timetable would be pushed up because with the mainstream media coverage something was going to have to happen sooner rather than later. This is the first time I have been given a date. Received an e-mail from a friend who has good sources inside the state capital. There will be no roadblocks from the state legislature to A&M joining the SEC. To be frank, the legislature will not be in session until after the election and they have more important things to worry about anyways. The governor is on board with A&M joining the SEC and even if he was not, he is too busy with preparing for a run at the presidency to worry about collegiate athletics.

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Once again the twitterverse has exploded with rumors of Texas A&M moving to the SEC. The latest story is that lawyers representing A&M has sent a letter of intent to the SEC and that all the member schools have already voted to accept the Ags. I was under the impression that A&M would announce their intention to join the Southeastern Conference this spring. The Ags did not want any distractions during football season and definitely did not want to receive the "officiating" that Nebraska got during their farewell tour of the Big 12 last year. It looks like the timeline has been sped up. Billy Liucci is reporting that although the Ags are not going to make a move this week or the next, the wheels are definitely in motion.

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The 2011 roster for the Texas A&M Football Team has been released. It appears that we added some weight on the lines and had a couple of guys shed some bad weight. Always nice to see the results of our S&C program as Dave Kennedy molds these kids. The weights I use are the weights listed on the 2011 roster when compared to the 2010 roster. If they are incoming freshmen, I will use their listed weight when they signed in February.

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The superhero of the twitterverse spadilly did an open records request for the contract between ESPN and tu regarding the Longhorn Network. The results of that request are posted over at The Midnight Yell blog. Most of you will remember that tu's athletic director Deloss Dodds claimed during the Big 12 media days that ESPN would act independently of tu in choosing high school games to broadcast. I guess doing it "in a first class way" means lying to the general public. The contract that tu entered into with ESPN includes provisions that tu will use their "best efforts" to help ESPN gain the broadcasting rights to the UIL State championships on the LHN. Does not sound like ESPN is acting alone to me. Sounds like tu is contractually bound to try and help ESPN get more high school content. This is why you cannot be in a conference with tu. They will lie to your face and the mainstream media will never call them on it.

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According to Billy Liucci, Brandon Alexander passed the final portion of the TAKS and is now eligible to play this season. The freshman OLB had failed to pass one section of he TAKs and retook the section in July. He had to pass it on his last attempt or he would not be eligible to play for A&M this year. Alexander got the job done and will report with the rest of the team tomorrow. The 6'6" 230 pound OLB should see immediate playing time at the Joker position.

Just two days after gaining the biggest commitment in recent years in Bryan PG J-Mychal Reese, Billy Kennedy and staff received another verbal commit from a nationally ranked PG when Kendrick Nunn of Chicago Simeon HS gave his pledge to the Aggies today. Nunn is a 6'1' 170 PG who ranks as one of the top 50 overall players in the 2013 class. Nunn averaged 9.3 points, 2.0 assists, and 2.1 rebounds per game last year for a loaded Simeon squad that repeated as state champions. Nunn is a great leaper who, like Reese, has a very smooth lefty stroke. He is a veteran of the AAU circuit, playing for the Mean Streets, and finishing in the top 10 nationally in '07 and '08. With Nunn's commit, that means the Ags will bring in top 10 nationally ranked PGs three years in a row. This means that our back court will be set for years to come. Bringing in guards like Nunn, Reese, and Branch will attract the attention of nationally ranked big men. When Glynn Cyprien was hired by Billy Kennedy, he came with a reputation as one of the top recruiters in the nation. He has definitely backed up the hype. The Ags are recruiting nationally at a level that has never been done at Texas A&M before. It remains to be seen what Billy Kennedy's team will look like on the court, but he and his staff definitely know how to bring in the talent.

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John Reese, the Head Basketball Coach at Bryan (TX) High School, is going to resign his position on Monday and join Billy Kennedy's staff as an assistant coach when the team returns from their European trip. Reese is one of the top high school coaches in the state and has many connections among AAU coaches and in the coaching profession. He should be a tremendous asset on the court and in the living room of prospects. Reese is also the father of recent Aggie PG commit J-Mychal Reese.

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Billy Kennedy just announced his presence to the college basketball world with a bang. The Ags landed their biggest basketball recruit since Antoine Wright committed to Melvin Watkins back in 2002. Uber-point guard J-Mychal Reese 6'1" 170 from Bryan, TX committed to Kennnedy and the Aggies today. The Ags have been recruiting Reese since he was an 8th grader attending A&M basketball camps. Reese has been ranked as the #1 point guard in America by various services since that time. Reese is an elite scorer who averaged over 28 points, 4 assists, and 2 steals per game while leading Bryan into the playoffs last year. He earned all district and All State honors for the Vikings. Reese is good friends with '11 Aggies PG recruit Jamal Branch. The two should combine to give the Aggies one of the best back courts in the nation.

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It was so obvious, yet it escaped everyone's attention. Dalton Santos simply loves the color orange. The inside linebacker who some rank as the top MLB in the country, wears orange for his high school team the Van Vandals. He made a verbal commitment to the orange and black of Oklahoma State. After coming to the conclusion that their orange was not quite the shade that he preferred, Santos committed to Tennessee today to spend the next four years wearing the brightest shade of orange known to man. Santos wanted to play in the SEC because he felt he was best against the run and the run they ball a whole lot in the SEC. I guess he did not want to wait a year until A&M would join the SEC. Derek Dooley is one of the best young coaches in America and I think he is going to build Tennessee back into an elite program. Gaining the commit of Santos is just another feather in his cap. For the Ags, it means that they will have to look elsewhere to find a true MLB. The A&M coaches are still waiting on a decision from Denzel Duvall. Even if he does choose A&M (I do not think he will) he is more of an OLB prospect than ILB. Maybe this opens up a spot for NG Tomme Mark to finally get an offer. If the Ags really want a MLB, then they have six months before signing day to find one. I still think a NG is the bigger need.

It is all over the twitterverse that Malcolm Williams is giving up football to attend to "family concerns." I do not know what those family concerns are. I do know this his mother has had some issues with the law so that may be what this is referring to. I first saw Williams play when he was a sophomore at Garland High School. He is still the most gifted athlete I have seen at Garland which is saying something considering they send a few kids to D1 schools almost every year. Williams played WR, KR, PR, and a little DB for GHS. He had legit 4.5 speed and was 6'4. To say he stood out on a HS football field was an understatement. By all accounts he was a good kid, and even though he was always the best player on the field he played the game with good sportsmanship. He never drew unnecessary attention to himself. The GHS coaches wasted his talent by rarely throwing the ball to him. I figured he would go to tu, get switched to safety and become an All American. Unfortunately the sips kept him at WR and he displayed inconsistent hands. He gained a lot of bad weight between the end of the '10 season and spring practice. He missed a few practices and when he finally made it onto the field he had been moved to H-back. Now he has given up football. There is nothing quite as disappointing in life as unrealized potential. Williams had NFL talent but it was never developed. I hope he stays in school at tu and gets his degree. I hope his story still has a happy ending to it.

The Ags come in at #9 in the preseason edition of the Coaches Poll. This is the first time the Ags have entered a season ranked in the top 10 since 1999. As most expected, Oklahoma garnered the top spot. I expect them to lose in Tallahassee so they should be number one for about two weeks. Most of the poll is as you would expect. I think Arkansas should be in the top 10 because their combination of Kniles Davis and those WRs is as good as any in the country. Tyler Wilson will simply have to drive the car. Ohio State and Auburn do not belong in the top 25. Both will be lucky to go 7-5 in my opinion. If you moved Missouri up and replaced Ohio State, and put Tennessee in Auburn's spot I think it would reflect what we most likely will see at the end of the season. With all the questions currently facing tu, I think ranking them in the top 25 is a joke. I guess that ensures that BYU will be the underdog when they beat them during the second week of the season. Works out well for BYU. Looks like the coaches recognized that Wisconsin with Russell Wilson under center is a legitimate MNC threat. Mississippi State has to be ecstatic. They will be able to get a win over a top 20 ranked Auburn team the second week of the season. I would much rather face Auburn than SMU in the Ags opener at Kyle. That ranking really has me puzzled. 

According to Billy Liucci, the TAKS test results for incoming OLB recruit Brandon Alexander should arrive this week. Alexander had to pass one section of the TAKS (I believe there are three and he already passed the other two) to qualify to play at Texas A&M this year. The talented 6'6" 230 pound athlete would be a major addition to the defense this year. With the graduation of Von Miller, the Ags are looking for another gifted pass rusher to take the reigns at the joker position. Damontre Moore was expected to step into the starting lineup after an exceptional freshman campaign, but off the field issues and immaturity have torpedoed his chances thus far. Caleb Russell had a tremendous spring and assumed the starting position heading into the fall camp. Alexander and Shawn Ward were expected to provide depth and a boost off the bench.

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I received a phone call from a guy who knows people, who know people. Evidently ESPN has pushed forward with their plans to televise high school games on the LHN despite the Big 12's order to cease and desist. This has forced A&M's hand and they may announce their intention to join the SEC sooner than next Spring. The new twist on the conference expansion is that Missouri will be joining A&M in the move to the SEC. This would add the St. Louis and Kansas City markets to the SEC. Regionally the move does not make a lot of sense because Missouri is in the Midwest, but the television sets they bring make a viable argument. The expectation is that A&M and Mizzou will join the SEC. OU, OSU, Tech, and possibly Baylor will join the Pac 12. Kansas and KSU will join the Big East. tu will go independent as we have expected them to all along. I know the Tech fans will be ecstatic because most of them wanted to join the Pac 12 last summer. Baylor just has to be happy that some one actually wants them, or seems to want them. I guess we will see the advent of the super conferences after all.

Ty Slanina ATH 6'0 180 East Bernard committed to the Ags today. Slanina plays QB and safety for East Bernard High School. As a sophomore Slanina won the 2A state titles in the long jump with a leap of 23 feet 9 inches. Slanina has exceptional speed and projects as a safety for the Ags. He is one of the fastest athletes in the state and is a great pick up for the Ags. He blew away everyone at the A&M camp by running a 4.30 in the 40. Slanina has also been offered a scholarship by Rob Childress and may play baseball while in Aggieland. The 2013 class could really help out at Olsen with Kohl Stewart and Slanina in the fold. If you want to see what a legit 4.3 in high school looks like, watch the video after the jump.

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