Could Texas finally play Texas A&M again this year as a plus-one?

What if Texas football played Texas A&M football this season as a plus-one?

Texas football and Texas A&M football need to get back to playing each other annually again.

With the most recent wave of realignment in college sports, the bitter rivals from the Lone Star State haven’t met since 2011. The Texas A&M Aggies left the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012 and have not faced the Texas Longhorns since. It’s one of the best rivalries that have been killed by the conference realignment of the 2010s. It’s a shame, but maybe we’ll get the game back soon?

According to Brian Davis of the Austin American-Statesman, who covers the Longhorns, he quoted Texas head football coach Tom Herman on the chances of us getting a surprise rendition of the Lone Star Showdown this fall as a plus-one.

“We’ve reached out to try to play them in the past. It didn’t go really well. Maybe this will be the catalyst to make it happen. Desperate times call for desperate measures, right?”

What are the odds we get an impromptu rendition of the Lone Star Showdown?

In the all-time series, Texas holds 76-37-5 lead over Texas A&M. This used to be both schools’ Thanksgiving Weekend game, oftentimes being played on Thanksgiving Day itself. In the six most recent meetings, the Aggies and Longhorns are tied up at three games apiece. While Texas doesn’t have a Thanksgiving Weekend rival anymore, Texas A&M has adopted the LSU Tigers as their own.

And that’s what this really comes down to. How many games are the ACC, the Big 12 and the SEC planning to play this year? Unlike the Big Ten and the Pac-12, they haven’t gone conference-only for this fall. While it is expected for the Big Ten and Pac-12 to pick up a 10th game in conference, ACC, Big 12 and SEC schools may go the plus-one route and schedule one non-conference game.

The biggest reason for this is four SEC East teams (Florida Gators, Georgia Bulldogs, Kentucky Wildcats, South Carolina Gamecocks) have major in-state rivals in the ACC. The ACC and SEC are the only two Power 5 conferences to play eight-game conference slates. The Big 12 goes round-robin, while the Big Ten and Pac-12 play a nine-game league slate.

While the Big 12 may be reluctant to pick up a 10th conference game, we should expect the ACC and SEC to consider going to nine at least temporarily. So you can understand why the Big 12 could be very intrigued by the plus-one concept. The problem is Texas already has a fantastic plus-one opponent on their regular-season slate in LSU on the road in Death Valley on Sept. 12.

Texas A&M lost a quality Power 5 opponent in the Colorado Buffaloes when the Pac-12 went conference-only. The Aggies’ three other non-conference opponents are Group of 5 or FCS opponents. Simply put, Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork will need to call up some ACC or Big 12 teams fast to put something together. What’s weird is this comment is coming from Herman.

Texas doesn’t have to do anything if the Longhorns don’t want to. They have a nine-game conference schedule built in, as well as the LSU road date. However, they may not end up playing the South Florida Bulls or the UTEP Miners in the non-conference. They may have Sept. 5 and Sept. 19 dates wide-open to schedule someone. Texas A&M could make either date work here.

Even if Texas is adamant about keeping the LSU date, there’s a chance the ACC, the Big 12 and the SEC end up playing more than 10 games this season. If they want to go to 11 Spinal Tap style, an early-to-mid-September rendition of the Lone Star Showdown would make so much of the college football world happy. It stinks this rivalry died, but maybe it can come back for one year?

The Lone Star Showdown can be played on either Sept. 5 or Sept. 19 if we want to get weird here.

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