I’ve got good news for The Lone Star State. Texas and Texas A&M are going to be playing football against each other in some point in the not-so-distant future.

But when? And will it be annual like it was before Texas held the Big 12 hostage and forced A&M to leave for the SEC?

(Chill, Texas fans. We poke fun in the SEC. Sooner or later, you might get good enough to actually crack a joke.)

We don’t know. We do know that Texas is joining the SEC by, at the latest, 2025. We don’t know what the new scheduling format will look like, though it appears the league is heading toward either a 3-6 model or a 1-7 model once Oklahoma and Texas officially join the conference.

In a 3-6 model, one would think that there would be enough room to make sure that Texas and A&M are each part of each other’s “3” permanent matchups.

One would think that a 1-7 model (1 permanent matchup, 7 rotating home-and-homes) would mean that Texas’ annual rival would be Oklahoma. Ergo, we would have 2-year stretches in which Texas and A&M don’t play. Yes, that would be a bummer to have them back in the same conference but not playing annually like they did from 1915-2011.

Fear not, Lone Star State. I’ve got more good news.

There’s a pretty simple way to make sure that these rivals play every year, regardless of the scheduling model. Just schedule it as a nonconference matchup for the off years.

What do I mean? Last year, UNC and Wake Forest played a nonconference game against each other. Why? The North Carolina-based schools didn’t like the fact that ACC scheduling meant that they only faced off once every 5 years, so they scheduled a home-and-home for 2019 and 2021.

Hmm. So you mean to tell me that 2 in-state teams that wanted to play each other just … found a way to do it instead of saying it was out of their control? Refreshing!

Remember that if we’re going with the 1-7 model and this situation presents itself, SEC teams will need 4 nonconference games. Also remember that SEC teams like Georgia, Florida and Alabama changed their scheduling philosophy with 2 or even 3 nonconference Power 5 games per year in the latter half of the 2020s, so that whole “we only play 1 nonconference P5 game” thing shouldn’t be a stopgap, either.

Texas previously had the 9-game conference slate in the Big 12, so it has at least 1 spot open annually. For A&M, it only has 1 year (2025) in which it has 4 nonconference games already scheduled.

Fine. Wait until 2026 if that’s what needs to be done. Just make it happen.

Stop this petty beef once and for all. Speaking of beef, it sure would be nice to see Texas and A&M actually play each other instead of using Bevo to troll the Aggies with his poop bucket:

You know what stinks? Like, besides Bevo’s poop?

The fact that if these teams aren’t proactive, we could still be living in a world in which they aren’t playing on an annual basis. One of college football’s best rivalries is being taken to relationship therapy. Instead of throwing shade at one another in the most passive aggressive way possible, maybe Ross Bjork and Chris Del Conte can look into each other’s eyes and agree on this resolution.

To be fair, neither has really “thrown shade.” They basically deny that they’re actively avoiding each other.

Two years ago, Del Conte actually laid down some specifics but then said that scheduling issues were preventing A&M and Texas from burying the hatchet.

“I think I had the conversation, a year ago, 2 years ago, when we had an opening and I asked [Texas A&M], ‘Hey, we have an opening in ’22, ’23,’ and I reached out and asked if they’d be interested in doing that rivalry game at the time,” Del Conte said during an appearance on 247Sports’ Texas Tailgate show. “And A&M said, ‘Hey we have no – we’re booked right now.’ And I said OK and I looked at where we were and I promptly looked at, why we have to create great games at home and add incredible value to our season-ticket package.”

So you know what would add incredible value to your season-ticket package? A joint press conference announcing that you’re going to play annually, regardless of the SEC’s format. Who cares if some of those games are in nonconference play? Isn’t that a million times better than going more than a decade without playing each other?

Even if there’s still some hurt feelings about the way it went down with the Longhorn Network and the Aggies’ departure to the SEC, it’s not like these programs can pretend that the other doesn’t exist. No matter what, they’re going to be playing. If they want to do this right, they can make sure that they don’t miss a year.

It shouldn’t have taken UNC and Wake Forest coming up with a football idea to pave the way for a couple of proud programs from the state of Texas, but here we are.

Who knows? Maybe the 9-game conference model is imminent and this will all be for naught. Still, a plan is needed for A&M and Texas to play annually once and for all.

Trolling poop buckets just won’t cut it.