Ross Bjork's September Aggie Town Hall
Sep 30, 2021 | General
Athletics Director Ross Bjork took questions from the 12th Man this week during his latest monthly Aggie Town Hall. You can watch the event below, and we've have select quotes from the session posted below.
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WJ: Looking forward to getting back home after being somewhat on the road last week. It was a neutral site, but a tough one for Jimbo and the Aggies. And really like Andrew and I were saying earlier this week and on the postgame show last week, it was the second longest win streak in the country for our football team. They had won 11 in a row. They're going into a game, having to bounce back from defeat, for the first time in a while. You got to go all the way back to early last year to realize the last time this team experienced a defeat and having to bounce back.
Yeah. I just I just ran into Kenyon Green up in the Slocum Center and was talking to him. And, you know, he just had a smile on his face. He was positive. He said, practice has been great. I was out there earlier this week.He said practice has been great. And his deal was, let's just go play. Let's have fun, let's smile, let's get in the huddle. Let's be great teammates with one another and just kind of let it loose. And that was the mentality he said that they're carrying into this week. And I think that's what makes great teams, is when you can do that. Obviously, we don't like what happened last week. We know we've got some work to do, shore some things up, but we got a great coaching staff. They'll figure it out. And if you have the attitude, like Kenyon just talked about, then that's what you expect. And so I know our guys will bounce back and have a positive day on Saturday. So here we go.
WJ: And a guy like Kenyon, it's something we always talk about, player leaders. You need guys like that at a time like this. And he's one that’s always at the forefront of it. Jimbo always talks about he'll manage it, let the players lead it. And that's when you’ve got the culture right. And it is right, because you know those guys will step up.
AM: Yeah, culture is a big word. And that's the beauty of all the coaches here. Instill everything that you want in a successful culture. It's more than just sport learning. Every sport lesson becomes a life lesson as well. And that's got to be a total part of it as well, doesn't it?
Well, just look at the example in men's basketball, the boot camp example. Talk about setting a culture. I was over there on Tuesday morning watching the final boot camp. And, man, those guys were into it. And you didn't see anybody hanging their head. You didn't see anybody complaining about it. It was work. It was about helping your teammates get through it. And it's very unique how Buzz does it. No one does this in the country, but it builds that system and builds that culture that you have to have come March. If you want to play in March and April, this is where it starts. So those little things add up.
WJ: All of our questions today were submitted through the official website of A&M Athletics, 12thman.com/askross.
Q: Ross, any timeline on the new facilities for the football program, as well as what these upgrades will bring in terms of benefiting the athletes’ performance both on the field and behind the scenes?
Yeah, it's a great question. And there actually has been a little more visibility to our fans and to our donors related to our athletic facility master plan. We sent out a survey to roughly 4,500 or so donors in the 12th Man Foundation. That survey went out. We're collecting a lot of that data to really solidify the exact planning. And so there's been some more visibility. We put some images out there of things that we would like to do. Again, it's a master plan. It's very high level, but timeline really depends on funding. So if our early stage, what we call the quiet phase, meaning there's not a lot of fanfare right now. It's very, very high-level conversations with donors that we hope can make lead gift donations to our facility. So if everything can go well this fall, then the rest of the public, the Aggie Network, our fans, our donors, we might be able to see some movement by next summer. So that's the timeline that we're working towards. Exactly what that movement is depends on the funding. Are we breaking ground? Are we sort of setting some infrastructure? Are we demoing certain things? All that kind of depends on fundraising. So I hope that we can make a lot of progress this fall. I hope that we can publicize any sort of timeline in kind of mid-spring of 2022 and then hopefully some movement in the kind of construction world, if you will, by summer of 2022. So we'll see. A lot of work to be done, a lot of procedures to go through, a lot of steps, a lot of processes, a lot of approvals. You've got architects, you've got the construction market right now. We know that commodities are tight right now. Can you even get steel? Those are those are questions that still have to be answered. So if everything goes right, we might be able see some movement in the summer of ‘22. And that's what we're gearing up for.
And then as far as the benefits, I think facilities are changing in in college athletics. You know, in the last 10 years, it's kind of been bells and whistles. You've seen Clemson have a putt putt golf course, basketball courts, the slide. I think Alabama has a water fountain wall that kind of rolls into some of their sauna and water treatment spaces. What we're seeing is, the trend is, how can I get better as a player? Is it a film room? Is it a practice facility? Is it a treatment? Is it sort of mental health approach? Is it something that will make me better as a player? And then, name, image, likeness. So is it a film studio? Is it photography? And we have two amazing setups right now for photography around recruiting and name, image, likeness. No one else in the country has these type of rooms that we have. So that's to me, that's what the benefits are going to be. Can it make me better as a player and then can it benefit me in name, image, likeness? So that's all the sort of design work and all the thought and the vision that we have around these new facilities. Can we make better players? And can we support them in name, image, likeness? So that's what we're gearing towards. And that'll then obviously pay off on the field. Better recruiting, better players once they get here, support them at the highest level around name, image, likeness, because that's the world we live in right now. And that's the focus of our facilities.
Q: What non-conference home-and-home matchups are on the radar after the Miami and Notre Dame home and homes? Because now we're done with Colorado. Then it's Miami, home and home, then it's Notre Dame home and home. What comes then after the Hurricanes and the Fighting Irish.
Yeah, non-conference scheduling is fascinating. Nothing will start a Twitter dialog, Twitter sort of angst, more than football scheduling. So this was after the New Mexico game. I'm sitting at my house watching the Penn State/Auburn game and people start tweeting at me. ‘We need to play Penn State. We need to play Penn State.’ And so I replied and I said, we've tried. And the answer was no. Yeah. Well, then that starts a whole sort of Twitter thread and they start copying the AD at Penn State, who's a really good friend of mine, Sandy Barbour. I'll get to the question here in a second, but this is kind of a funny story. We had AD meetings last week in Washington, D.C., and I see Sandy. She's like, ‘Ross, why did you do that? Why did you?’ And I said, I didn't tag you in the tweet. Everyone else started tagging her. But I said, well, Sandy, it just goes to show you that there's the good of Twitter and there's the bad of Twitter. But nothing will kind of start a Twitter dialog more than scheduling, for some reason. So anyway, that was a little sidebar that we had fun with. And Sandy took it in good stride. I said I'm sorry. I should have probably clarified a few things. But the answer was, sorry, we're not available at Penn State.
So here's who we have. He mentioned Miami and Notre Dame. So Miami's in 2022, here. At Miami in ’23. Notre Dame here in ’24, at Notre Dame in ‘25. And if you've never been to South Bend for a football game, it's an amazing experience. You stay in Chicago, you take the train into South Bend on game day. The train pulls right up to Notre Dame Stadium. I mean, it's a great scene. So we have Notre Dame in ‘24 and ‘25. Arizona State is on the books. So Arizona State here in ’26, at Arizona State in ‘27. And then we have Louisville. So we have the Bourbon Trail coming up. So Louisville here in ’28 and then at Louisville in 2029. So that's the remainder of the current agreements in our Power 5 arrangement.
So we're looking. We're looking at ’30-‘31, ’32-‘33. So we try to do them in those two year back to back cycles if we can. Sometimes it doesn't match up exactly that way. We're searching, but we're also being a little cautious because you don't know what the SEC format is going to be, right? You don't know what that is. So assuming Texas and Oklahoma come in 2025, that's the year we play at Notre Dame. What's our SEC rotation look like? We want to make sure all that syncs up with your home games, your road games. So I'm sitting here saying, hey, we have Arizona State and Louisville, and we don't have anything booked beyond that. But until we kind of know what the SEC landscape looks like, then, to me, we kind of need to sit tight and monitor. And we don't know what the alliance means. ACC, Pac-12, Big Ten. Does that mean they'll have room to even schedule SEC opponents? Are they going to be tied up where they're not even available? We are talking to several Pac-12 programs right now, several Big Ten programs, about those out years. But everybody's sort of cautious right now because you just you don't know what the landscape is going to look like. So there's a lot to scheduling. It's not just, ‘how come we're not playing Penn State? Make them play us.’ It doesn't it doesn't really work that way. It obviously takes both programs. there's a lot to it.
AM: You know, that team that Penn State played, we play every year.
Yeah. You know, and I saw some narrative that, you know, SEC teams will never go up and play those kinds of games…No, I think it might be the other way around. The SEC will play anybody. And if you think about the four rivalry games that are already on the books in the SEC, the end of the year, Kentucky/Louisville, Clemson/South Carolina, etc….the SEC? We’re not the issue. It's do people really want to come to Texas in September if you play in the north or the northwest? So there's a lot of variables that that just don't make it as linear, I think, as some people make it out to be.
AM: If Texas A&M remains on this trajectory, do we then become part of a rotation to play in Atlanta, the beginning of a season, something like that? And does that affect the schedule?
Exactly. We know that the Arkansas game, assuming that we even play them every year in the new SEC rotation--and we don't even know that--but that game, that neutral site game, will end in 2024. We've made that very clear. But depending on what the SEC model is, you may not even play them every year. But that game should be on campus. I think all SEC games should be on campus, that's my philosophy. But how does that rotation work with neutral site games? How many home games are you going to have in the SEC? How many road games? Are we going to increase the amount of SEC games? Right now we're at eight. Do we increase that? All of those things have to be on the table as we study all this.
WJ: And before we move on from it, we did release the 2022 schedule. You can see the Aggies’ slate next year, three straight home games to kick it all off and that Miami home game as part of it. And I don't know if some fans are thinking this, they might be, if we released a 2022 schedule without Texas and Oklahoma, does that mean we have moved forward next year without the Longhorns and Sooners involvement in the league? Is that necessarily what that means right now?
As we sit here today, 2025 is what we're all planning for in terms of Texas and Oklahoma coming in. So if they can get out early, that's really up to them. That's between them and the Big 12, however that works. So we have to move things forward. ’22, schedule’s set. We're assuming they're still in the Big 12. What happens in ‘23? What happens in ‘24? Right now we're assuming that they're still in the Big 12, unless they can get out somehow earlier, negotiate their way out. And then once they do join, that's where the big question is, what's the model? How many SEC games do we play? Is it one single division? Is it two divisions? People keep talking about these pods. Well, pods actually have a lot of complications to them because it all depends on who's in your pod. If you have permanent opponents, maybe that's a simpler way, so you can have more crossover games. Hopefully we have a lot of the scheduling parameters solidified by next spring and next summer. That's really the goal, that we take this whole year…we actually have an SEC AD meeting next week in person. So we take this year, map out all the scheduling parameters, not just for football, but every sport. Think about baseball. Think about a basketball tournament with 16 teams. Think about a baseball tournament, right now we have 12. So do we stay at 12? Does that increase? There's a lot of things to get on the table. We only play 16 women's SEC basketball games and we play 18 men’s. Should those be equal? Should those be increased? We play 24 softball SEC games, but 30 baseball. Should those be even? What's the right number? So all of those things have to be on the table. There's a lot of subcommittees formulating this. Next spring and summer, look for a lot of scheduling things with Oklahoma and Texas, to be solidified.
AM: Even without Texas and Oklahoma, there were thoughts of trying to see the other schools more frequently anyway.
Right. That was coming anyway. There's no doubt. We need more variety, there's no question about it. Florida is coming here next year. We played them last year, but that was because of Covid. Otherwise, they'd only been to Kyle Field one other time. Same with Tennessee. We’d never been there. We've never gone to Kentucky. That can't stand anymore. We've got to change that. There's got to be more variety. The CFP expansion, fan interest, television, all of that, has to be part of the new model.
Q: Last spring and early this summer, there was a lot of fear around name, image and likeness. Critics stated a doom and gloom scenario to college football, especially within the locker rooms. However, it seems to be a very positive opportunity for players and their families. Can you give us your thoughts on its launch and things you would like to see in the future to make it better?
Very good question. Very productive question, because we are learning a lot in terms of what's working, maybe what needs to be tweaked. And here's the thing. So there's a lot of layers to this. I'll try to try not to go too long, but we could talk all day about name, image and likeness.
First of all, he said doom and gloom and we're still open. College athletics is up and operating. We're playing games. We’ve got stadiums that are that are full again. So everything has worked out like we thought it would around name, image, likeness. The student athletes have opportunities, which we always thought that they should. We have to follow the state law here in Texas, because that's how we're governed. The NCAA has really no rules around this other than it can't be a pay-for-play and it can't be an inducement to either stay at a university or come to a university. Other than that, the NCAA said follow your state law. So I think there's 23 states that have a law around name, image, likeness. Texas is one of them. But we have some states in our footprint that don't. Oklahoma has a governor's order that's basically like the NCAA, pretty much hands off. And now they're going to be coming into the SEC. So at some point in time, we need consistency around the whole country. We need a federal standard, a federal law. We need Congress to eventually step in and create the right kind of law to support our student-athletes. So I think that will evolve over the next year to two years where we do have a federal standard. But in the meantime, we're bound by the state law.
Here's the only thing that Texas A&M can do related to name, image, likeness. Educate our student-athletes. Check the contracts to make sure they follow the state law. And if they don't, we push it back to the student-athlete or their representation or whoever's working with them and say, hey, this doesn't follow the state law. You need to change this. And then once they do that, we record it and that's it. The rest of the agreement and the rest of the relationship is between the student-athlete and the entity, the business, whatever that might be. So everything has worked according to plan. Our student-athletes, I believe, feel like they're supported in this area. The Aggie Network is is a big reason why Texas A&M is successful. And again, it's evolving, right? So more of the Aggies are trying to figure this out. Like, what can I do to support student-athletes? So we're educating our Aggies and our boosters and our donors and businesses on what they can do. And then obviously, once they decide, hey, I want to do something with an athlete, then they work with that athlete or their representation. And so I think it's gone really, really well. I think our athletes have been really smart about the arrangements that they're securing.
And then in the future, as far as what can we do to make it better? I think we have to figure out what group licensing means. So how do you go more maybe across a full team? I think we have to we have to figure out how do universities become either more involved somehow? And again, I don't know what that exactly means, but the athletes always look to us for help. And right now, we can only do certain things. And so is there more involvement that the university can have? Those are some things that we're continuing to talk about. And then, honestly, I think the Aggies, whoever is interested in doing this, find a way to connect with student-athletes. I mean, as long as you follow the state law and as long as you do it the right way, you can have a relationship with student-athletes. So the size and scale of the Aggie Network should benefit our Texas A&M student-athletes. Let's be creative. Let's have our Aggies go to work. And that will benefit the program. And we're more than willing and able to say those kind of things. We just can't be involved in securing, arranging, negotiating. But we know that it can add value to our program. We're excited about it. The athletes seem to be. I was talking to Kenyon actually a little bit. He's got a few arrangements. They're taking advantage of it. And we think it's going well. We haven't seen any locker room issues. We haven't seen that. I mean, we would hear about that if that were the case. So far, so good.
WJ: That Aggie network, I mean, one of the largest alumni bases in the country, one of the highest enrollments in the country. So it's only getting bigger.
Within a two and a half, three-hour radius, we've got 25, 26 million people that the athletes can can connect with. So a lot of advantages here at Texas A&M and we want to utilize those as this evolves and name, image, likeness becomes just part of the norm.
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