Ed.: Promoted.

1) "The Texas legislature can block [UT or A&M] if it doesn't take [Baylor, Texas Tech, etc.]."

I'm not sure how this one ever got started (I guess it came from some Texas pols helping Baylor get in the Big 12 over Houston in the early 90s... yawn), but I've seen it widely used across CFB message boards and in the press before and during these latest negotiations. Baylor and Texas Tech cannot do anything to stop either Texas or A&M from making any conference move they want to make, and there's nothing any Texas politician (or group of them) can do to stop that. Any that even tried would see their political careers in Texas end quickly. Texas was never risking any Pac-16 deal for Baylor, and UT's "Tech problem" was nothing more than Bill Powers putting his rejection of the Big 10 on another school. (Additionally, Dan Branch is a completely irrelevant clown who just wanted to get himself some free PR.)

2) "The SEC should add Texas," "Texas would consider the SEC," etc.

The SEC is a non-starter for people that call the shots at UTexas, and it has been for a long time. (Note to Harvey Schiller and Paul Finebaum: DeLoss Dodds does not have the final say on this decision. The people who do are firmly opposed to Texas ever joining the SEC.)

Mike Slive was very smart about this in initially making offers to both Texas and A&M in these latest negotiations. Slive knows UT won't consider the SEC, but it was smart politics to force Texas to reject that offer before the SEC approached its real target in the move: A&M.

3) "Everything Chip Brown said on this was accurate."

Chip Brown was given the scoop on this story by people inside UT that knew what they were doing. Smart move as it set their own Rivals.com affiliate up to be the go-to source for the media on this story, letting UT spin any developments to its advantage. (And a nice little quid pro quo for Brown as he used the scoop to tirelessly shill for subscriptions to his website throughout this story.)

Brown went on to report numerous falsehoods such as:

• Texas fighting for Baylor to join the Pac 10 over Colorado (never happened)
• Cal blocking Baylor out of Cal's religious intolerance (smearing a university with something it never did, just for UT to distance itself from never existent Baylor support, as soon as Nebraska was leaving and the Pac 16 might be happening)
• Brown went on SportsCenter on Thursday (6/10) evening and said that the Pac-16 (including A&M) was basically a done deal; Brown was just parroting the UT party line he was being fed, trying to hurry A&M into a deal A&M was far from signing off on but that UT wanted done in order to keep the SEC out of Texas
• Brown continued to say the other schools would go to the Pa-16 even without A&M.
• Brown said Rick Perry was fighting for A&M to the Pac-10. Obviously UT wanted to create this perception publicly to try to lend political authority to their Pac-16 deal. A&M insiders and Perry's office have repeatedly denied he took a side on the matter.