You know the bug that’s crawled up Texas A&M’s hind parts over the Longhorn Network’s desire to televise high school football games? Well, its managed to find its way to Oklahoma’s nether regions as well.
In the wake of the Big 12’s decision to put at least a temporary halt to the Texas-branded network’s plans while the situation’s being studied by the conference as well as the NCAA, OU president David Boren plans to introduce an initiative in the near future that would bar both institution- and conference-affiliated networks from televising high school games as it would result in an “unfair” recruiting advantage.
“I’m going to be, at the proper time, suggesting we adopt a conference rule against either the conference network or any university network broadcasting high school games,” Boren told the Daily Oklahoman. “It’s unfair recruiting, and it’s trying to push all those people into purchasing network memberships and so on.
“It’s just not the right thing to do.”
Such a move by Boren would have a direct impact on his school as OU is still in the process of studying the feasibility of creating their own network.
It’s also interesting that Boren mentioned the conference network as part of his soon-to-be-proposed ban. While there’s been talk that some of the other schools in the Big 12 could form its own network, this could be perceived as a shot across the bow of the Big Ten and Pac-12; the word on the street is that the two conferences have an interest in providing high school content on their networks and are very interested in what the NCAA’s decision will be on the matter, which is expected to come in August.
The concern, especially in College Station, over the Longhorn Network’s plans to televise high school games, as well as a conference game being televised on the network in 2011, was sufficient enough that the A&M/OU-to-SEC rumors surfaced yet again this week. The biggest red flag, and what prompted the national furor, was a June radio interview with a high-ranking ESPN executive in which the official mentioned televising games involving UT recruits, even going so far as to mention the potential signees by name.
Those remarks are being looked into as a potential NCAA violation.