Texas A&M Denies Big 12 Departure Rumors. Sort Of. at LinesMaker

The New York Times says Texas A&M has decided to leave the Big 12.

Texas A&M says the New York Times is wrong (sort of).

And so con­tin­ues what is sure to be a long, drawn-out and even­tu­ally very tired story–the story of Texas A&M’s (appar­ently) inevitable but ulti­mately dif­fi­cult and drawn-out move from the Big 12 to the (allegedly) greener pas­tures of the SEC.

In a story posted Mon­day, the Times’ excep­tional col­lege foot­ball writer, Pete Thamel, wrote that A&M Pres­i­dent R. Bowen Loftin had sent a let­ter to Big 12 offi­cials, noti­fy­ing them of his school’s intent to leave the league. The story was inter­est­ing but hardly sur­pris­ing, given that every­one knows A&M can’t stand life in the Big 12 now that the con­fer­ence is run almost com­pletely at the behest of its most hated rival, the Uni­ver­sity of Texas.

Nonethe­less, A&M spokesman Jason Cook said on Tues­day that the Times had it wrong–and that Loftin had not actu­ally sent a let­ter at all.

Later, the Times cor­rected its story, not­ing that Loftin had not actu­ally writ­ten a let­ter regard­ing its impend­ing depar­ture, but had rather phoned the news to Mis­souri chan­cel­lor Brady Deaton, who serves as the league’s board chairman.

In other words, this is all a big game of seman­tics, and the broader story remains the same: A&M wants to leave the Big 12. A&M wants to join the SEC. And there’s appar­ently noth­ing that can be done to change the Aggies’ mind on the matter.

Every­thing else is just noise.