When it comes to Aggies, Horns and the Big 12, revenge appears to be a dish best served cold.

A new look at the fallout of Texas A&M leaving the Big 12 for the SEC shows that former Longhorns athletic director DeLoss Dodds was half-right about A&M, but not in a good way.

The Aggies are flying high, undefeated and ranked No. 6, their best season in years. Dodds thought A&M would crash and burn in the SEC. Far from it. In fact, A&M is making it rain money in College Station.

But Dodds nailed it when he suggested A&M’s departure would allow SEC teams to ford the Sabine River and raid the Lone Star State of talent.

If talent matters, the Big 12 is dangerously close to not mattering on the national football landscape.

A document leaked last week, researched and compiled by a school outside of the conference, shows precisely why the league is dying.

In 2010, the Big 12 signed 41 of the state’s top 50 players. The SEC landed only three.

A&M jumped ship in 2012, and SEC signings in Texas have increased since then.

This year, for example, the Big 12 was able to sign 22 of the top 50.

The SEC, however, signed 20. A&M only got six.

Regarding Texas blue chips, to paraphrase Leon Black from “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” the Aggies are getting theirs. And by letting the SEC in, they are crippling the Big 12 and the school they blamed for their departure.

Fans of Big 12 teams can take some solace in the way A&M has struggled to be relevant in SEC football.

Despite that, the SEC move had been the school’s best decision since that year it set up camp in Junction.

Wait. Do you think football is about wins and loses?

Please.

The Aggies may have struggled to semi-relevance on a regional stage with a 17-15 SEC football record going into this season. But the school has lined its pockets with cash, thanks to the league’s proprietary mint, er, television network.

In 2013, A&M and other SEC members earned $21 million. Last season, that went up to $31.2 million. Next year, the Aggies and their pals will each pocket $44.5 million, which would pay for 44,000 pairs of Aggie senior boots.

With the windfall, the school has been able to drop a half-billion on facilities now considered among the nation’s best.

Home-game attendance has been north of 100,000 since Kyle Field was expanded.

More importantly, at least regarding sibling schadenfreude, the Big 12 is hurting.

Already the weakest of the “Power Five” conferences, the league is hemorrhaging fans, wins, TV ratings and respect.

All of that is leading to speculation it won’t survive the next wave of conference realignment. If things start to look sketchy, Oklahoma and Texas will bolt, though politics may force UT to drag along Baylor and Texas Tech on the way out.

And with that, the Big 12 is over.

Alternately, the Big 12 could embrace and expand its bland (not a typo). The first step would be to stop treating schools such as Rice, SMU, UTEP, UTSA, Houston and Tulane as if they have head lice and realize the collegiate playing field is a lot more level than it was 10 years ago.

Who am I kidding?

The Big Cigars at Texas and Oklahoma will go down with the ship, even if the ship is a dinghy and even if the cigars are $2 Travis Club Senators Especiales Maduros before they take UH seriously.

When the league tanks, fans and scribes will point to various factors behind its fall from grace such as bad hires, bad recruiting and, in all likelihood, bad news coverage.

In reality, the real blame (or credit, if you bleed maroon) should be laid at the senior-boot-clad feet of Texas A&M, which took the money, ran and let the infidels through the gates, er, over the Sabine River bridge.

The proof is in the blue chips.

rbragg@express-news.net

Twitter: @roybragg