The whole Texas A&M/SEC thing is still odd to me, and I'm not sure how long that's gonna take to wear off. When it comes to Aggies and LSU, that doesn't phase me in the least because that game was played all the time when I was a kid, and it's definitely a regional match, so it checks all the boxes in my brain. But I have yet to get used to watching Aggie play Alabama, Auburn, Clanga, etc. Something is just off about that.
Maybe it's because I lived in Texas and I know the average Texan's mentality about being a Texan, and that it kinda clashes with the prevailing Southern mentality, except Louisiana. Louisiana has a kind of diet-version of the Texas complex. People from Louisiana can often be pretty into themselves being from Louisiana. The rest the South, far as I can tell, are more into being Southerners rather than being from a specific state. So when A&M rolls into town thumping their chest because BY GOD WE'RE FROM TEXAS, LSU kinda neatly matches that ethos with WELL BY GUMBO, WE'RE FROM LOUISIANA WANNA START SOMETHING? When A&M goes to or hosts one of these other schools and says BY GOD WE'RE FROM TEXAS, those schools are like "Huh? Ok. We're from the South, I reckon. Er...nice to meet you?"
But mostly I think it's just weird watching A&M play a bunch of schools there's no history with, and not playing schools there's a ton of history with. I remember watching the annual UT/TAMU games as far back as they were on TV in my lifetime, and it's weird not to see it anymore.
Oh well, times change. They're our problem now, I guess, for better or for worse. I do hope the the UT game is resumed one day as an annual ooc match. And who knows what the future holds. The SEC is unlikely to stop courting UT, and who knows, one day maybe the 4th or 5th time will be the charm.