The Big 12 shake-up of 2012 destroyed a lot of relationships. But the bitterness between current and former conference members might be far more severe than reported.
Six years after Colorado and Nebraska bolted for the Pac-12 and Big Ten, respectively, and five years after Missouri and Texas A&M left for the SEC, vibrations of that chaotic wave of conference realignment are still felt across the country. And though it could've been far greater had the Pac-12 poached six Big 12 teams, thus effectively ending the Big 12 — or at least destroying it to the point of non-repair or unrecognition — it was still a defining moment in the conference's history.
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It was also a defining moment for one of college football's greatest rivalries. Texas and Texas A&M had met 118 times, including every year since 1915. That rivalry ended in 2011 when the Aggies left for the SEC and Texas athletics director DeLoss Dodds said they'll never revive the series.
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However, Dodds reportedly didn't stop there. According to former Texas A&M athletics director Bill Byrne, he led the charge in getting the rest of the Big 12 to never schedule Texas A&M.
“Their AD at the time came out and said we will never play Texas A&M again, and they worked along with Baylor and the conference to have no one in the (Big 12) schedule us,” Byrne told John Talty of AL.com. “There were other forces at work to make sure we didn’t play.”
Texas A&M has played three Big 12 teams in bowl games since 2011 (Kansas State, Oklahoma and West Virginia) but none during the regular season. They have at least one non-conference game scheduled through the 2025 season but none are against Big 12 teams. It is unclear if the Aggies have attempted to schedule such games and/or if Texas' vendetta has impacted their scheduling.
