If offered, there is one reason why Jim Schlossnagle should leave Texas A&M for Texas

The timing is absolutely terrible, because it always is in these instances.

On the morning his team prepares to play the decisive Game 3 of the College World Series, Texas A&M baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle has to deal with the speculation that it will be his final game with the Aggies.

Because it makes sense that, win or lose, his tenure in College Station is over.

This is what happens when the University of Texas athletic department has any opening, from janitorial staff to a head coach. Few schools in America can install preventative measures to successfully avoid the “Texas Longhorns Are Hiring” earthquake aftershocks.

Sorry, Texas A&M; you’re in the SEC which means you’re special, but on this, you’re no different than Texas Tech or TCU.

Texas is Texas. Austin is Austin.

If Texas calls Texas A&M’s baseball coach with a job offer, it would be a surprise if he passed. These two have flirted before.

On Monday morning, University of Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte issued a statement confirming what had been a source of nationwide speculation for the last two months. UT fired baseball coach David Pierce, thus creating an opening for one of the most coveted jobs in the sport.

Pierce was the head coach at Texas for eight years and won three Big 12 championships, with three trips to the College World Series. Texas hasn’t won a national title since 2005, so ... you’re fired.

“It was a difficult decision for us both, but we have mutually agreed that we should make a change,” Del Conte said in a statement.

Pierce issued a statement where he expressed gratitude, and that it was time for a change. It helps that Pierce has two years remaining on his contract that pays him $1.2 million per year, and he is entitled to at least 70 percent of that total.

Whom might Del Conte know who might be interested in the job? Everyone. Chris knows everyone. And everyone will want this job. Neither is an exaggeration.

This includes Texas A&M’s Schlossnagle. Del Conte was the TCU athletic director from 2009 to 2017, and his baseball was Schlossnagle.

The TCU baseball program thrived under Schlossnagle in that time. The two had a solid working relationship, and Del Conte extended Schlossnagle’s contract a few times.

When Schlossnagle left TCU for Texas A&M in 2021, a prevailing thought around TCU was that had Del Conte still been at TCU he might have been able to convince him to stay. On this, it’s doubtful even with Del Conte’s sales skills Schlossnagle would have remained at TCU.

In his tenure at TCU Schlossnagle considered other jobs, including Mississippi State, and there were rumblings that Texas wanted him back in 2017. Only until the spring of 2021 did the timing fit for him to leave.

Would he leave College Station after only three years, including this one where he has had the best team in the nation throughout the season? Regardless of the Aggies’ result against Tennessee in the final game on Monday night in Omaha, Texas A&M had one of the best seasons in program history.

His contract situation will make an exit to Texas expensive. According to Danny Davis of the Austin American Statesmen, Schlossnagle made $1.35 million this season, and his “buyout is twice as high if he’s hired by another in-state school.”

The Aggies should have just called it, “The University of Texas provision.”

And, if Texas calls and offers you the job, not only are you listening you’re probably leaving.

Ask Texas Tech about this. Or TCU.

Texas Tech did everything possible to keep basketball coach Chris Beard from leaving Lubbock in 2021, but once UT called, he was gone. Because of Beard’s off-the-court-life, that move turned out to be a disaster, but in the moment when he left it was a slap at the Red Raiders.

When Del Conte was athletic director at TCU, he routinely fielded offers from other universities. He said no to all of them, until Texas called.

There are some jobs that are bigger, and “better,” than the rest.

Since Texas A&M left the Big 12 in 2012 it has spent every available dollar to build a top tier athletic department, and to compete in the SEC. If you can look past the hiring and firing of football coach Jimbo Fisher, which may not be possible, Texas A&M is a premier job in the best league in college athletics.

It’s also not the University of Texas.

As much as the Aggies may like to denigrate the “tea sippers” with taunts of “tu” among a thesaurus of four-letter words, the name Texas is next to Ohio State, Alabama, Michigan and a few others at the top of the college sports pyramid.

Doesn’t mean Texas A&M is a bad job, or a bad place. It’s just not Texas.

If Del Conte calls Schlossnagle, the Aggies should prepare themselves that their baseball coach will pull a Davy Crockett and utter an abridged version of, “You can go to hell — I’m going to Texas.”