Lost Contact: The Bill Byrne Story

Jeremy Mauss of the excellent Mountain West Connection blog here on SBNation turned me on to this little gem from Texas A&M Athletic Director Bill Byrne.

"We wanted to play Arkansas in the Metroplex," Bill Byrne said. "We felt once we lost our contacts with TCU and SMU, we needed a presence in the Metroplex. We still think we do.

This was a great shock to me, as I was under the impression that the reason that Texas A&M was the one old SWC foe we haven't seen on our scheduled football games because A&M hung up on Chris Del Conte every time he called since we became good and they became bad (pretty much every season since 2001). And I suppose it's just bad recollection on my part that has me think that they had a home and home set up with SMU in '05/'06 but bought out the pony folk, and have another home and home set to conclude in Dallas this very next season. So it's not that A&M is afraid of TCU, it's that they simply lost contact with us. Fret not, frog fans, for TCU AD Chris Del Conte has actually made it very easy to get in contact with him, his email is posted on the university website, and I have taken the liberty of emailing Bill Byrne with this very email address. I'm certain that with this restoration of contact we'll be seeing Texas A&M's band march up and down the field (and see their offense do much much less marching up and down the field) any year now.

What a relief it was just a loss of contact, not cowardice on the part of A&M! Though it is strange that we've played A&M in baseball, basketball, women's basketball, softball, tennis and more since this loss of contact made scheduling the Frogs in football impossible. Maybe I should email Bill Byrne again.