Some responses from the people I asked online, sure some of it matches the article, but didn't read it all.
Quote:
The Governor at the time was a Baylor alum and made the other Texas schools take Baylor with.
As well as the lieutenant governor who really has the power, and the guy who ran the Texas Education Agency. They threatened to open the oil trust that UT and A&M get exclusive access to the rest of the public schools. Upon the prospect of losing unlimited funding they just went with Baylor's idea of joining the Big 8. It didn't help that Rice, UH, and TCU were all bad at the time either. Fuck Kim Helton forever and ever.
Up to that point there was a bunch of talk about splintering the state - Texas as we know almost joined the Pac 10, they were talking to the Big 10 too, A&M and Houston were talking to the SEC who was open to going to 14, TCU was sort of talking to the Big 8, and SMU was seriously considering dropping to D-3. Once the oil money threat went down, all that instantly stopped.
UT and A&M still get exclusive access to that trust, and it's only being opened at some point in the near future if another public school can hit a bunch of funding and personnel targets. Texas Tech and Houston are closest by far.
I didn't think that the emerging research thing was going to touch the PUF, but instead would create a new fund (with a bit less money) to fund the new t1 schools?
My understanding of the whole thing was that the money was coming from the PUF to start a new trust for the new Tier 1s. I know it's not new spending because it'd never would have passed otherwise, so maybe it's coming from another fund.