College Football

Texas AD on A&M, conference realignment, SEC schedules

DeLoss Dodds thinks an alliance between the Big 12 and ACC could be a stabilizing factor for college football. He offered opinions on that and other topics Monday.

By Steven Muma@akulawolf Mar 18, 2013, 5:38pm EDT

Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds spoke recently about several different topics, including a potential alliance between the Big 12 and ACC that he thinks would help to stabilize both conferences. The two leagues would schedule games against each other every year, and they would be able to share television revenue. Dodds believes this would help the leagues avoid becoming major expansion targets for the Big Ten, SEC or Pac-12.

"And the alliance between the Big 12 and the ACC, I think, strengthens them. I think that the Notre Dames of the world, it would unite them a little bit, toughen them a little bit. Then I think it would be less likely that anyone could pick one of their schools up."

The Big 12 has been exploring a potential alliance with the ACC since January, and have had or are having discussions with other leagues as well.

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Dodds also spoke about the future of the series between the Longhorns and Texas A&M. Dodds said he expects Texas and Texas A&M to play again at some point, though he added that it will have to be on the Longhorns' terms:

"They're the ones that decided not to play us. We get to decide when we play again. I think that's fair. If you did a survey of our fans about playing A&M, they don't want to. It's overwhelming. I know. I hear it. Our fans are important to us. I think there's got to be a period where things get different. I think there's too many hard feelings."

The Aggies just completed their first season in the SEC; Texas won the last meeting between the two schools, 27-25, in 2011.

Lastly, Dodds addressed the difficulty of making it through the Big 12's nine-game round robin conference schedule, and said he thinks that presents a tougher path to the national championship game than the SEC's schedule format:

"It's hard to get out of it," Dodds said of the Big 12's round-robin schedule. "But if you get out of it, you're straight into the national championship. If you can go straight through our conference, it's a direct line to the national championship. In the SEC, Alabama hadn't play [sic] Georgia for four years. So there's maybe some advantages to it. They play some nonconference games late in the season that soften their schedule. The Big 12 is a tougher road to get there than the SEC because of their scheduling abilities."

In recent seasons, both Oklahoma State and Kansas State have come close to reaching the national title game, only to lose conference games late in the season.