Texas coach is bullish on old rivalry
Tom Herman is on board with the Texas Longhorns renewing their rivalry with Texas A& M.
The third- year Texas coach was asked about the prospect of playing the Aggies again Tuesday at the Big 12 media days at AT& T Stadium.
“I’d love to see the rivalry renewed. It’s great for college football. It’s great for Texas,” Herman said.
Herman argued that Texas doesn’t have any other historic rivals they get to play in Austin. TCU and Baylor are probably the closest as far as history.
Of course, the Longhorns’ historic rivalry with the Oklahoma Sooners is one of the longest and best in all of sports, but that game is always played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The Longhorns and Sooners have played 104 times.
“It would be great for Texas fans. We don’t play a historic rival at home anymore, ever,” he said. “We’ve got to drive to Dallas to play our lone, historic rival.”
The last time the Aggies and Longhorns played was in 2011, Texas A& M’s last year in the Big 12 before moving to the Southeastern Conference. The schools have played 109 times dating to 1903. Texas has payed Baylor 107 times.
Georgia
Kirby Smart talks about the Georgia taking “that next step.” Quarterback Jake Fromm wants the Bulldogs “to get over the hump.”
In the SEC, that step — or hump — is beating Alabama. Georgia has pushed the Crimson Tide to the brink in a SEC championship game and a national championship game the past two seasons, only to lose both times.
It’s close enough to stamp the Bulldogs as national title contenders once again. Despite 24 wins and one SEC title in the past two seasons, the team’s offseason catchphrase says it all: “Do more.”
“We want to do more at the University of Georgia,” Smart said at SEC media days. “We’re not complacent in what we’ve done, and we know we need to take that next step.”
While Georgia and Alabama remain the teams to beat in the SEC, there are other teams that showed signs of mounting challenges by the end of last season.
The Bulldogs and Tide both ended with losses, including Alabama’s 44- 16 national title game humbling by Clemson. LSU and Florida finished on high notes to secure final top 10 rankings with Kentucky not far behind at No. 12. Jimbo Fisher appears to have Texas A& M on the rise also.
No program in the SEC has come closer to catching up with Alabama than Georgia. The Bulldogs lost the national title game two seasons ago on Tua Tagovailoa’s touchdown pass in overtime and blew a two- touchdown lead over the Tide in the SEC title game in December.
Elsewhere
Schools interested in joining the American Athletic Conference after Connecticut leaves can call commissioner Mike Aresco. The AAC will not be soliciting applications for membership.
Aresco said at the American Athletic Conference media day that the league is leaning toward not replacing Connecticut and going forward with 11 football schools after the Huskies depart for the Big East. “One thing we decided early on: We weren’t going to be making phone calls. We weren’t going to be targeting anyone,” he said. “People have my phone number. If somebody was interested in our conference we’d listen because we would have a fiduciary obligation to listen.”
Connecticut’s return to the Big East was announced last month, but exactly when it departs from the American and how much it will have to pay in exit fees still must be negotiated. Conference bylaws require a 27- month notification period before a school can leave and a $ 10 million exit fee. Both sides would prefer the transition to happen after this school year, though that will likely cost extra.
The American, which emerged in 2013 from the collapse of Big East football, signed a new 12- year, $ 1 billion media rights deal with ESPN in March that kicks in next year. The contract does allow ESPN to adjust if the American loses schools.