Texas asked Texas A&M to play a home-and-home in 2022 and 2023 and A&M said no

Nick Bromberg
·College football and motorsports writer
The Aggies and Longhorns haven’t played since 2011. (Getty)
The Aggies and Longhorns haven’t played since 2011. (Getty)

Was there a legitimate offer to rekindle the Texas and Texas A&M rivalry? According to Texas A&M athletic director Scott Woodward there was.

Woodward told the Houston Chronicle that Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte called him and offered to play a home-and-home series in 2022 and 2023. And Woodward declined.

“We were already booked,” Woodward told the Houston Chronicle. “We’re booked 10 years out. He had an opening at the time, and it suited him, but it didn’t suit us.”

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According to FBSchedules.com, A&M has just two non-conference games scheduled for those two years. So maybe A&M has contracts that are signed but not made public yet. It’s possible. But teams move future games around all the time. If A&M really wanted to play Texas it could have made it work.

Teams haven’t played since A&M left the Big 12

So here we are waiting for the two teams to play each other again. The last time they played was in 2011, A&M’s final season in the Big 12 before moving to the SEC. Coincidentally, or maybe not, Texas is playing Alabama in 2022 and 2023.

In theory, it’s easier for A&M to find an opening to play Texas than vice versa. The Big 12 plays nine conference games, which means Texas only has three open non-conference slots in a given year. With eight conference games in the SEC, A&M has four.

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But A&M has shown no immediate desire to get the series rekindled. Woodward said earlier this year that the game had to come at the “right time” and “right place.” Those comments came approximately two weeks after the announcement of the Alabama series, which filled Texas’ Power Five quota for 2022 and 2023.

According to the Chronicle’s description of events, the Alabama series was finalized after Del Conte made the offer. The Alabama-Texas home-and-home series is a fun non-conference game for college football. But let’s be real. Texas playing Texas A&M those two seasons would be better.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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