Texas abandoning the game isn't really gonna affect our recruiting much.
I mean playing Texas is a high profile game, especially the way it's set up on Tday. But let's get real: if we are inviting potential recruits to Kyle to watch us host Florida, Bama, LSU, Auburn, Tenn, Georgia etc, etc, we will have more than enough high-profile games with which to impress recruits. Kids aren't gonna walk away from Kyle, with their ears ringing from spending 3 hours with a rabid, sell-out crowd, thinking "Well that was bland. Too bad they didn't play Texas."
Quite simply, we won't need the TDay game to help us out with recruiting; we will get plenty of exposure. If we can string together 3 or 4 8-9 win regular seasons (and a few bowl victories), we will be just fine no matter what yall do.
Blackballing us isn't going to change that. All it's gonna do is lose both schools some money since neither of us will have THE premiere time slot on TDay and all the revenue it brings.
Another thing: the academics argument is garbage. I mean good lord, just look at your entourage. If you go the Pac 10 the way things are now, you'll have in tow: 2 tier 3 schools (OSU & TT) and 1 school ranked in the 100s, toward the bottom of tier 1. You'll be joining up with Az & Az St, which, while they are tier one, are toward the lower edge, just like a lot of the SEC schools.
The truth is that there won't be much difference at all academically.
[This message has been edited by john32f (edited 6/13/2010 3:39p).]