Texas A&M announces Board of Regents special meeting to discuss SEC issues
The Texas A&M Board of Regents will soon hold a special meeting to discuss issues related to the SEC.
Texas A&M issued a media release to announce Monday’s special Board of Regents session via conference call. The agenda for the meeting, posted online, notes that the call will include a “discussion of contractual and governance issues relating to Texas A&M University and the Southeastern Conference.”
The posted agenda noticeably lists an incorrect date of “Monday, July 21, 2021.” July 21 was Wednesday of this past week, the day news broke that Oklahoma and Texas reached out to the SEC about joining the conference. Texas officials reportedly believe that Texas A&M officials leaked the news to Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle. The URL for the posted Board of Regents conference call agenda does include Monday’s date of “July-26-2021.”
After the news broke Wednesday, Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork appeared on “The Paul Finebaum Show” at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama. When asked about the report, Bjork mentioned that one of the reasons Texas A&M left the Big 12 was to have a “standalone identity” as the only Lone Star State school in a major conference.
“The SEC has been a perfect fit for us,” Bjork told Paul Finebaum. “We want to maintain that same identity. Perhaps there’s a reason that Texas and Oklahoma are looking around – if that’s the case.”
Bjork continued, “We love being in the SEC. We love being the only (SEC) program in the state of Texas. We’re going to maintain that position, but we’re also going to make sure that we are a leader in college athletics and we’ll see what the future holds.”