Texas A&M’s Big 12 Breakup Reaches Wistful Stage

Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne gets candid over what conference realignment has left behind, wiping a Lone Star tear from his eye with a stack of $100 bills and drowning it all with a Dr. Pepper, the official drink of many SEC events.

↵↵“I feel badly about that,” Byrne said. “I’m very foolish. I assumed -- and it was a rash assumption on my part -- that our friends over in the state capital would want to continue playing us. It turns out they didn’t think we were as much of a rival as we thought of them.”

↵↵Many Texas fans would go out of their way to agree with that assessment, as the ultimate rivalry maneuver is to pretend your rival isn’t really a rival ... all, “Oh, I didn’t even realize we played you guys in sports. We mostly just care about every team besides you.”