Updated: A&M confirms games against USC no longer on schedule

Scheduling was a hot topic during SEC meetings this week. Keeping with that topic, Texas A&M confirmed some disappointing news.

Former Aggies athletic director Bill Byrne announced four years ago -- back when his school was a member of the Big 12 -- that A&M had future games against the Trojans (2015-'16) and the Ducks (2018-'19). However, current AD Eric Hyman said (via the Houston Chronicle) those games have been tossed aside.

From the paper:

Those games are no longer part of A&M’s plans, Hyman said, because “having switched from the Big 12 to the SEC, we’ve had to scrub our whole schedule - throw it almost out. Going forward, we’ve had conversations with people, but we really can’t be contractually (obligated) until the conference says you’ve got the green light.”

FBSchedules.com reported two weeks ago that the USC series was never finalized.

All of this comes at an interesting time. SEC commissioner Mike Slive made it clear this week that he expects members to bolster their non-conference schedules as long as the league stays at eight conference games. Moving forward, Slive added that SEC schools will receive their conference game dates first and must schedule non-conference games around those dates.

It’s disappointing that A&M won’t be able to play those games, but scheduling can be complicated as evident by the fact that, whatever’s going on in College Station, Oregon is unaware of it.

Updated 2:30 p.m. ET: The USC series is still off for Texas A&M, but it appears the two games against Oregon in 2018 and ’19 are still on. That was confirmed to FBSchedules.com by parties at both A&M and Oregon. So, again, complicated. Or know one knows what’s going on. Little column ‘A’, little column ‘B’.