The Southeastern Conference’s two closest institutions from a proximity standpoint are Alabama and Mississippi State, with only 85 miles separating Tuscaloosa from Starkville.
Alabama and Mississippi State are not scheduled to play each other in football this year for the first time since 1947.
Georgia’s closest SEC counterpart is South Carolina, and vice versa, but the Bulldogs and Gamecocks aren’t scheduled to vie this season, either.
With the league expanding to 16 members and maintaining eight conference contests, multiple annual matchups are falling by the wayside — Auburn-LSU, to name another — to make room for new rivalries, and there is no new rivalry in the SEC that’s more anticipated than Texas versus Texas A&M. Those Lone Star State programs last met in 2011, when the Aggies were on their way out of the Big 12 Conference and headed to the SEC.
“I’m excited,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said this week at the SEC’s spring meetings in Destin, Florida. “I’ve been a part of some great rivalries in college football, and there has been so much talk about realignment. I know realignment looks different for every school, but for us, we gained two rivals back. We’re playing Arkansas again, which is great for Longhorn Nation, and we got A&M back.
“With A&M, you’re talking about houses divided and decades of tremendous games and Thanksgiving weekend, and I know we’re looking forward to it.”
Texas and Oklahoma are the two schools joining to form the 16-member collection, and the Longhorns and Sooners will continue to meet each year in Dallas. Texas and Texas A&M are scheduled to collide in College Station on Saturday, Nov. 30.
The Aggies wanted out of the Big 12 when Texas announced its partnership with ESPN to form the Longhorn Network, which was a 20-year deal for $300 million. The last contest between the two schools was a thriller, with the Longhorns venturing to College Station on Thanksgiving night and prevailing 27-25.
That meeting seemed like it might serve as the last encounter between the two barring a bowl pairing, but news broke in July 2021 that Oklahoma and Texas were changing neighborhoods.
“There was an understanding among the membership, at least there was 10 years ago, that you don’t admit a school from the same state as a member school unless that member school is OK with it,” former Texas A&M chancellor R. Bowen Loftin told ESPN in July 2021. “We talked about it from time to time among ourselves that this was the way it was going to be and that if we had another school in Texas wanting to enter the SEC, Texas A&M would have veto power.”
Bygones have been bygones this week in Destin, at least publicly, as Texas A&M appears just as excited about the rivalry’s renewal as Texas. The Longhorns are the newcomers but have more stability on the field, with Sarkisian having led last season’s team to the College Football Playoff.
Texas A&M is entering its 13th season in the SEC but is still seeking its first league crown. The Aggies skidded to a 12-13 record in the final two seasons of former coach Jimbo Fisher.
“We should play them,” Aggies first-year coach Mike Elko said this week. “When you have two programs like that in the same state within two hours of each other, those two teams should play every year, and it should mean an awful lot.
“I think it will be really cool this year to get that rivalry back going, and it’s awesome that we’ve got it at Kyle Field and that amazing atmosphere.”
Texas and Texas A&M are assured of meeting each of the next two seasons, but after that it could become a pairing that takes place twice every four years if the SEC remains at eight league games and develops a 1-7 format with one permanent opponent and seven rotating foes. In that scenario, Texas and Oklahoma would be permanent opponents, as would Texas A&M and LSU.
League commissioner Greg Sankey said earlier this week that he did not expect the debate whether to have eight or nine conference contests would be resolved in Destin.
Rashada saga
Current Georgia quarterback and former Florida signee Jaden Rashada was a topic of interest this week.
The backup quarterback for the Bulldogs signed with the Gators in December 2022 but never enrolled and was released from his national letter of intent after a reported $13.85 million name, image and likeness deal fell through. He transferred to Arizona State and was limited to three games last season due to a knee injury.
Last Tuesday, Rashada sued Florida coach Billy Napier, Gators booster Hugh Hathcock and former Florida football NIL director Marcus Castro-Walker for more than $10 million in damages for the failed NIL deal.
“I am comfortable with my actions,” Napier said this week in a news conference. “I’m thankful for the university’s support. We’re going to let the process take its course.”
The 37-page complaint was filed in Pensacola by Houston-based attorney Rusty Hardin, who is a Baylor School graduate. Georgia coach Kirby Smart learned of the lawsuit last Monday.
“He told me the day before that they decided to do the lawsuit, and I told him that would be between his family and his attorneys,” Smart said. “I’m not involved in it and Georgia’s not involved in it in any way. I worry about what’s in my little bubble at Georgia, and that’s outside the bubble for me.”
Napier and Smart were not overly long-winded on the subject, but nobody was more succinct than Sankey.
“I’m not a fan of lawsuits,” the commissioner said.
Now wearing red
After 15 years of wearing Kentucky blue, first-year Arkansas men’s basketball coach John Calipari has been in Destin this week wearing red.
“I had no team,” Calipari said of his first few days with the Razorbacks, “so when I got to five players, I was happy because I knew we could field a team if no one gets hurts or fouls. It’s been good.
“We’re at eight right now, and I’m ecstatic.”
Calipari led the Wildcats to the national championship in 2012 behind the freshman tandem of Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Kentucky reached the 2015 Final Four with a 38-0 record behind the freshman duo of Devin Booker and Karl-Anthony Towns.
“You can’t do this now with seven freshmen. You just can’t,” Calipari said. “You’re going to hit a team that’s 25 years old on average, and that team is physically going to get you.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.