COLLEGE STATION - Texas president Bill Powers likely was only trying to comfort his Texas A&M counterpart at the time, R. Bowen Loftin, with the unknowns of conference realignment looming four years ago.

"Don't worry. Whatever happens, we'll take care of you," Loftin recalled Powers telling him not once but twice during that summer of league discontent.

"Whether he intended to sound consoling, caring or considerate, I took his response as condescending," Loftin writes in his new book, "The 100-Year Decision: Texas A&M and the SEC."

"Texas A&M didn't need UT to take care of us," Loftin writes. " … We were determined Texas A&M would stand on its own, without Texas watching out for us like a protective big brother."

A&M indeed stood on its own starting in 2011, bolting the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, which it officially joined in July 2012, thanks in large part to Loftin's dealings. Loftin, now Missouri's chancellor, reveals a bevy of behind-the-scenes action involving A&M, realignment, his dealings with UT and Baylor, the firing of then-football coach Mike Sherman, and the forced resignation of then-athletic director Bill Byrne.

A candid Loftin, in an advance copy obtained exclusively by the Chronicle, revealed that his wife, Karin, wouldn't even speak to him for a time after he had reached the conclusion that Sherman - "a man whom my wife had grown to admire immensely" - needed to be fired after the 2011 season, with the struggling Aggies bound for the SEC. But Loftin said there was no question Sherman needed to go after a 25-25 record over four seasons, writing that "I wasn't convinced that Sherman even wanted to coach in the SEC. Back in 2010, he'd told me that he preferred to stay in the Big 12."

Loftin wrote that he gave Sherman a chance to explain the Aggies' 6-6 regular-season record in 2011, a year in which they started in the nation's top 10, but "Sherman began raising some points that sounded more like excuses. He mentioned that recruiting was going really well, but he then said something that really struck me as odd: He basically attributed the 6-6 season to a lack of senior leadership. That stuck in my craw. … After four years on the job, he had not had enough time to develop senior leaders? Really? How long would it take - five, six, 10 years?

"Along with all the other strikes against him, that comment put me over the top."

As for Byrne's forced resignation in May 2012, Loftin revealed: "Shortly after Kevin Sumlin was hired to replace Sherman, I called Byrne to my office. He probably anticipated the purpose of the call. Bill and I had merely coexisted for quite some time, but after Sumlin was in place as the new leader of the Texas A&M football program, I believed it was an ideal time to begin seeking a new leader for the athletic department."

The Aggies hired Eric Hyman from South Carolina to replace Byrne.

Interaction with Baylor

Meanwhile, Baylor had threatened litigation while the Aggies were in the process of trying to exit the Big 12 in 2011, prompting Loftin to recall, "(Baylor president) Ken Starr had sent me flowers in 2010 (when the Big 12 escaped an overall breakup, despite the departures of Colorado and Nebraska). Now, he was devising a bogus lawsuit against the SEC to throw a monkey wrench in Texas A&M's plans."

Loftin also wrote that then-A&M regent Jim Wilson received a phone call from a Baylor regent with the message, "A&M and Texas leaving would be a rifle shot to the head for Baylor athletics."

When it became evident the Big 12 would survive without A&M (and a little later, Missouri), the Baylor threats dissolved, and Loftin said he even received a congratulatory email from Starr after the Aggies whipped Baylor in 2011 at Kyle Field.

During that game, A&M played an SEC commercial on its video board, prompting an angry reaction from Sherman to Wilson in the days after, Loftin said, adding that Wilson had nothing to do with the ad and that Sherman later apologized to the regent.

"But it was certainly clear to me at that time that Mike was uncomfortable even talking about the SEC, and he certainly wasn't interested in promoting the new league," Loftin wrote. "That was a significant negative regarding Sherman's future at Texas A&M."

One of the book's more colorful descriptions involves Byrne and then-UT athletic director DeLoss Dodds during a break in a sometimes heated meeting between UT and A&M officials in 2010, when the Longhorns were pondering a move west (to the Pac-12) and the Aggies a move east (to the SEC).

"They seemed stunned and dismayed by our desire to consider other options," Loftin penned. "(Regent) Wilson observed DeLoss Dodds shaking a finger toward Bill Byrne, cursing at him and threatening to never play the Aggies again if we dared to go against the grain. Wilson noted that Byrne didn't say much to defend himself. That certainly wasn't because he was intimidated by Dodds. Byrne wasn't the type of person who backed down from confrontation.

"But my opinion was that Byrne did not view the SEC as a positive option for A&M."

The last straw in Big 12

When UT and ESPN revealed their plans for the Longhorn Network in January 2011, A&M used the $300 million deal as a reason to again explore entering the SEC, Loftin remembered.

"The Longhorn Network … was certainly a high-profile, well-publicized reminder to Aggies that the University of Texas, with the financial backing and clout of ESPN, planned to test and stretch the boundaries of the NCAA's authority," Loftin wrote. "(And) it seemed (then-Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe) was perfectly willing to provide rubber-stamp approval for virtually anything that Texas proposed, regardless of whether it was favorable to the rest of the league or only UT-Austin."

The book, co-authored with Rusty Burson of the 12th Man Magazine, is expected to be available for purchase within the next month.