Jim's Notebook: Did Texas A&M Think This Deal With Arkansas Through?

DID THE AGGIES THINK THIS DEAL THROUGH WITH HOGS?: Former Texas A&M football coach R.C. Slocum sounded the warning a few weeks back, expressing some concern from his Aggie viewpoint that the A&M brass had agreed to enter into a 10-year agreement with Arkansas to play at Jerry Jones' Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The first game is Saturday night (6:45 p.m., ESPN2).

Slocum, who was head coach for the Aggies from 1989 to 2002 and a coach in some capacity there for three decades, spoke to the Little Rock Touchdown Club three Mondays ago. He wondered aloud why A&M might let Arkansas back into Texas with the annual game. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is a key recruiting ground for the Aggies. Arkansas hasn't been nearly as effective recruiting Texas since leaving the Southwest Conference, but with a game every year in Cowboys Stadium, most everyone from Hog supporters to their rivals believe it will enhance the UA's recruiting ability in Texas.

The University of Texas grudgingly agreed to a couple of home-and-home series with Arkansas, the first covering 2003-04 and last year's game in Austin behing the first of a second two-game series. It's doubtful the 52-10 Longhorns win over the Hogs gave Arkansas much positive to sell Texas prep athletes, no more than them staying home and playing for Rice, who also lost by a similar score to the Horns.

But then again, a 38-28 win by Matt Jones and the Hogs in Austin in 2003 and a 22-20 loss to Vince Young and the Longhorns the next year didn't seem to open up the gates to great numbers of top Texas players either.

Arkansas needs to play the game, certainly, but it also needs to win its share. But if anyone believes Oklahoma has made a living out of recruiting the state of Texas simply on years of annually playing the Longhorns in Dallas, they're kidding themselves. There is too much written about (re: Jim Dent's "The Undefeated") and admitted over the years even by former Sooners that it took OU more than merely playing in Texas to recruit the best out of Texas in great numbers.

With the creation of the Big 12 in 1996, Oklahoma has had the advantage of playing at least four Texas schools every year, and making two to three trips down I-35, or over to Lubbock. Oklahoma is more like a local team, and Dallas has a humongous amount of OU alumni. Reportedly, OU waives out-of-state tuition to students from north Texas. 

Arkansas is returning to Texas for football in the way Oklahoma used to do it every year with Texas, with one game below the Red River every year. It's not like the three or four the Hogs had every year in Texas during Southwest Conference days, but it at least gets the Arkansas name in front of people again, and the Dallas-area newpapers start talking about the Razorbacks again.

If it helps Arkansas attract four or five difference makers a year out of Texas, then the move was the right one for Arkansas, and maybe not the right one for Aggies or their in-state brethren.

BRING YOUR DOLLARS: One of the reasons A&M officials indicated they couldn't turn down the opportunity to play in Jerry Jones' stadium was the possibility of both teams getting $5 million per game.