Athletics Director Ross Bjork took questions from the 12th Man during his latest monthly Aggie Town Hall.
Athletics Director Ross Bjork took questions from the 12th Man during his monthly Aggie Town Hall on Tuesday afternoon. You can watch the event below, and we've have select quotes from the session posted below.
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Ross, before we get going, it's winding down. There's not a lot of home events left for Texas A&M Athletics.
Yeah...time flies. I mean you think about, we're at the end of the semester, graduation ceremonies are happening. Obviously classes are over with but the ceremonies continue and you're right. We had the SEC track meet last weekend, we've got the LSU baseball series. We're hosting the NCAA Regional track meet at the end of next week. And that's it. We're not in a position to to host anything else the remainder of the year. To really say that we've completed 95 percent of our athletic events, we've had five percent canceled because of COVID, that's pretty miraculous. And again we keep saying it, but credit student-athletes in particular for all the protocols that they endured. Our medical staff, our trainers, our sports psychologists, our academic counselors for going virtual, our coaches for adapting...pretty phenomenal to say that we're sitting here at the end of May playing 95 percent of our games. Yeah, we lost a football game. And yeah, we had a basketball shut down for a long period of time. And you never want one of those things to happen, but the rest of it is pretty amazing. And that's just a credit to a lot of people, but in particular, the student-athletes. In May of 2020, 95 percent would have been outstanding. It's still outstanding.
But that was a pipe dream a year ago, wasn't it?
Yeah, we're 62 weeks away from March 13 when we shut down. And I remember this time of year last year, I mean we were still kind of in triage mode. Are we even going to be able to even work out? And there was a debate, do we start on June 1? We start on June 8? We start on June 15? What are the protocols? How do we get testing? I want to say this week a year ago we operated our first COVID tests and we started out with some staff, with some football coaches and some athletic staff. I got mine the last week in May a year ago. To think about how far we've come, right? And now we're sitting here, we're vaccinated, we don't have to wear masks and just we had Coach's Night last night in Brazos County, at the Expo Center. Packed house, not a mask in sight. So people are ready for this and are excited to be here.
We are in the football season ticket sales process and we've seen others across the SEC and particularly in Texas recently announcing that they will go to 100% capacity at their home games. Are we still planning for a full Kyle Field and full atmosphere in the fall of 2021?
Absolutely. That is the focus. We've been saying it, really...I think we were actually one of the first ones who came out and said that we're gonna have a full stadium. We sent out our ticket renewals in February and really started gearing towards that. And that's exactly what we're focused on is a full capacity stadium, 102,000 people right there on September 4th. And really throughout the whole season, we have a great home schedule. So yeah, we're full go, we're fully open for business. We keep saying that we're open for business. That means we're doing a lot of the normal activity that we do in college athletics, but one of the most important is we've got to continue to sell season tickets. So I would say we're really kind of on pace with where we were back in 2019 in terms of that year to date number. Aggies are stepping up, but we have to continue to sell, and so we've got May, June, July and August to continue to ramp up our season ticket base and have that full capacity in Kyle Field. Also we're not ready to quite release the details yet, but we're going to have a special occasion around that first game and really commemorate something that Aggies did 20 years ago. We're working with the student body on that, so we'll have more details, but really a cool setting for that first game. Again, it's a commemoration of something that happened 20 years ago, but also it's a way to just bring people back because we've all been in our bunkers. We've all been frustrated by all of this. It will be the first time that as Aggies we'll be able to gather in a large scale. And then we're gonna layer this commemoration on top of it and it's gonna be a neat deal. So full stadium at Kyle Field, full stadium at Ellis Field, full arena at Reed Arena. You name a venue that we have in the fall of 21 and we want it to be packed and full.
Very nice, very nice. Do you keep some of the cleaning techniques that we've learned in the last year?
Yeah, Obviously we're going to continue cashless concessions. I mean, there's no turning back on that. The technology is there. Tickets, same way. Ticketless transactions. So a lot of those protocols, but I think the spacing the cleaning of restrooms, those things will continue a little bit, but those things will be relaxed for the most part.
In years past it seems like May to June is when we find out when kickoff times are released. Not all, but some early season games. Do you anticipate seeing something on that soon? When we will know some of the kickoff times for our games in September, maybe even beyond?
Normally we have in person what we call spring meetings in Destin. And those start the Tuesday after Memorial Day, which would be June 1. Normally those first three weeks are announced during that week. I think we're looking at the week before, where the SEC and working with our TV partners will announce. We saw some games announced today. We saw some of those primetime games, if you will, those early matchups. So we should see the first three weeks of the season with game times and networks released hopefully sometime at the end of next week.
June 1, the recruiting calendar opens with in-person visits. You can go see recruits and return to normalcy. We're getting back to that less than two weeks away from today.
Here's another layer, we can actually do evaluations of prospects on campus. And that's never happened in the sport of football. Basketball has it, but because of the recruiting shut down over the last 16 months, we can actually do on-campus evaluations in the sport of football for an hour. The crazy thing is they can only work out individually with the position coach. So there's not a quarterback throwing to a receiver, or a defensive back able to cover. But at least you're able to test their abilities and agility and things like that. So we'll have official visits, we'll have unofficial visits, we'll have camp. We'll have evaluations the whole month of June. So it's gonna be really, really busy. It's gonna be crazy. I know the football staff is gearing up for that and I think there's a lot of excitement, but it's also going to be a lot. This is really gonna be unprecedented in terms of the volume of activity in June. But that's why we have the staff we have. That's why Jimbo has a plan. Recruiting momentum continues to be at a super high level, and not only for football, but June 1 is open for everybody. The recruiting calendars for all sports have returned to normal. So if sports are able to go off and go on the road and evaluate and go off campus, they'll do that. Coaches can have camps this summer. I know all of our sports have their camps advertised right now and I know my kids are signed up for a couple of them already.
You referenced Coach's Nights…
They've been great. They have been fantastic. I've been to Dallas, that was the largest one. Dallas was packed. Great energy. Fort Worth Monday was fantastic. Dallas, Gilley's again. Fort Worth was Billy Bob's. Jimbo says he's never been escorted in, he's usually escorted out. But just that excitement of not just being able to get together, that excitement...but to be in that room, it's just fantastic.
If you were the football czar and could make the decision solo, how many teams would get a bid to the playoff?
So if I was the football czar and could make a decision solo, how many teams and who would get an automatic bid? So I need to be very clear, and I'm being serious about this part of it. This is my opinion. This isn't the SEC's opinion. Obviously there's formalities that have to take place. There's high-level conversations, there's presidential involvement, there's commissioner involvement, obviously we were consulted. We can have an opinion, But ultimately it comes down to the 11 FBS Commissioners, along with Presidents and Chancellors from those 11 conferences who ultimately make the decision. So, to me, it's inevitable that it's gonna happen. It's just a matter of how it's formatted, and when does it take place? Because we know we have an existing contract that runs through the 2025-26 cycle, the 2025 season, the games of 2026, the bowl games, the playoff games. So I think it's going to happen. Does it happen early? I don't know. I think there's a lot of things that have to be analyzed before that happens. But to me, you've either got to go to eight or 12. 16 I think is too big. It's too long, you know, doing 16. I don't know if that makes sense. The cool thing about where we are is we're talking about it. So that means four has actually worked, because there's a debate and there's there's interest if you will. So I think it's in that eight to 12 range because then that layers in the second part of this, who would get an automatic bid? You've got the five autonomous Power 5 conferences. And right now it's the group of five kind of have an access point together. Well that's six right there. So is that your automatic bids right there? And then if you're at eight, then you only have two at large. But if you're at 12, then you have six at large. Six automatic, six at large. So who it would be to me? You start with the Power 5 and you start with that one Group of 5, because that's the format we have now. And then eight gives you two at large. 12 gives you six at large. So to me, it's in it's in that 8 to 12 range. Now again, there's a lot of things you have to overcome. You have to overcome a schedule. When do you start playing those games? What happens to your conference championship? A compression on the back end of the schedule? So are we playing farther into January? And you're looking at 15, 16 games now, which is almost an NFL schedule. We're not going back from 12 regular season games. That's not part of the equation. It just isn't feasible economically. You can't back off from that. So again, my opinion, my analysis as I study things, who the automatic qualifier piece is is important. To me it's in that 8-12 range, which makes the most sense. And then, yeah, maybe you're playing those games on campus, the first and second round games. And then you've got the six New Year's Six bowl games. So you've got a formula right there where you can plug in. I think there's a lot to discuss. It's a transformative time in college athletics. When you look at this piece of it, the playoff piece, you look at what's happening with our state and congressional legislation around name, image, likeness and transfers. And there's a lot that we're going to have to adapt to. And Texas A&M is in a great position to really capitalize on whatever happens with all these conversations.
But as this plays out, that's why '24, '25, '26 are almost going to be watershed years in college athletics, isn't it?
Yeah, because if you think about what's going to happen over the next three or four years, we're going to really adapt to these new environments. Around transfers, how does that kind of level out? What does name, image, likeness look like? What's the financial picture? One of the concerns I have, yeah, we're gonna open up Kyle Field and we're gonna be able to sell every ticket. But how many people got used to being on the couch? How many people said, boy, this is pretty nice. I got my cooler, I got my big screen, I got my air conditioning, the bathroom's right here. I don't have to wait in line. I don't have to fight traffic. So we have to continue to evolve the fan experience. So that live in-stadium experience is the way people choose. I think all those things are converging at the same time and again, if anyone can get through it, it's Texas A&M. The challenge creates the opportunity. We couldn't be in a better place.