Poll: What two teams should the SEC add to make it a 16 team super conference?
Poll: What two teams should the SEC add to make it a 16 team super conference?
Will new SEC football divisions be as balanced as the past 20 years?
Final 20-year tally of six-team divisions shows remarkable parity.
SEC: No switch to nine conference football games – at least not yet
South Carolina President Harris Pastides told his school’s student newspaper the SEC will play nine conference games by adding Missouri. The SEC office says that’s not the case – at least not yet. “No, not at this point,” SEC Executive Associate Commissioner Mark Womack said Monday. “I think (Pastides) believes it’s something we’re certainly going to look at or thought it might be an idea. But it’s a topic that really hasn’t had a lot of discussion at this point.” Would the SEC ever go to nine games?
With 2 new teams, SEC’s geographic center moving west but staying in Alabama
The SEC is moving West, but its geographic center is still in Alabama. The league confirmed the addition of the Missouri Sunday. Texas A&M, another Big 12 refugee, joined the league earlier. Both schools will start competition next football season. Although the scheduling and travel hurdles are still being worked out, it’s fair to say that both schools will add a new geographic flavor to what has traditionally been a Deep South football league. But the changes won’t be too dramatic.
Missouri brings good math, bad geography in joining SEC
The SEC will be a 14-team conference next year and logic, if not geography, prevailed by placing Missouri in the East. The bet here is that’s temporary housing before two more teams are eventually added in the coming seasons as conferences continue to implode and evolve.
SEC, meet Missouri; Missouri, meet SEC
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – So much about the Missouri and SEC courtship has been awkward. There was the anonymous comment from a Missouri official about pining for the Big Ten but taking what’s left. There was the SEC accidentally posting the Missouri announcement a week ago and blaming it on its web vendor. Why should Sunday’s celebration announcement have been any smoother?
All SEC fans need to know about the new 14th member Missouri
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Missouri has joined the SEC. Who are these third set of SEC Tigers? Here’s a primer on the SEC’s 14th member, including on-field success, off-field finances, NCAA violations, comparisons with SEC members, and longstanding traditions you might want to learn before Missouri joins in 2012.
SEC accepts Missouri for 2012-13
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – The SEC finally announced Sunday that Missouri will join the SEC in 2012, immediately giving the conference 14 members next year along with the previous addition of Texas A&M. “The Presidents and Chancellors of the Southeastern Conference are pleased to welcome the University of Missouri to the SEC,” Florida President Bernie Machen, president of the SEC Presidents and Chancellors, said in a statement. “The University of Missouri is a prestigious academic institution with a strong athletic tradition and a culture similar to our current institutions.”
Missouri Announced As 14th In SEC
To the surprise of no one, other than the announcement coming Sunday morning, Missouri has been accepted as the newest member of the Southeastern Conference and will begin participation in all sports beginning next year (2012-13). The SEC has taken two former members of the Big 12 to increase the SEC to 14 teams.
Majority of SEC presidents favor Missouri, but not yet enough
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Missouri demonstrated it’s ready to publicly dance with the SEC. But will enough SEC presidents agree to the overture? Two sources familiar with the SEC’s discussions about Missouri told The Birmingham News Wednesday that as of now it appears that a majority of SEC presidents and chancellors would support Missouri’s application. But the sources said that majority falls just short of the nine votes required to add a new member. One source said there’s a group of presidents that wants to sit tight, believing the SEC can do better than Missouri and that No. 14 should come from the East. According to both sources, Alabama wants to look East and not risk losing its annual game against Tennessee, while Auburn favors adding Missouri and moving to the Eastern Division.
Two SEC ADs say no discussion of 14-team schedules at meeting in Birmingham
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – SEC athletics directors met today in Birmingham to discuss implementing Texas A&M into a 13-team league in 2012, a conference spokesman said. Two athletics directors said there was no discussion about scheduling for 14 teams. Missouri curators voted unanimously Tuesday night to give Chancellor Brady Deaton authority to look elsewhere rather than immediately commit to the Big 12. Several media outlets have reported Missouri wants to join the SEC, although the Associated Press quoted an anonymous Missouri official saying the school preferred the Big Ten the most. “We can’t talk about it,” Florida Athletics Director Jeremy Foley said after the ADs met for about four hours at the SEC office. “We’re talking about A&M.”
Change is the price of progress for the SEC
The University of Missouri is not a member of the Southeastern Conference – yet. Maybe Mizzou never makes that move. But as of Tuesday night, it appears that the bags are packed, the front door is open and the car motor is running, at least in terms of Missouri leaving the Big 12. After a lengthy meeting of its Board of Curators, Missouri officials met the press. Those officials never mentioned “leaving,” applying a thick layer of the euphemistic “exploring options” instead. But if Missouri were intent on staying in the Big 12, the easiest comment in the world would have been “we’re staying.” And no one said that.
SEC’s scheduling options for 13-team league could bring end to some annual rivalries in West
If the SEC goes into the 2012 season with 13 teams, it’s biggest immediate issue will be how to compile a conference schedule. A 13-team SEC will not be able to maintain its current schedule of eight conference games with each divisional rival playing each other and each team playing three cross-divisional games. The math doesn’t work. Slive and the SEC have created a “transition team” whose job it is to determine how to best incorporate the Aggies into the conference – whether they will join the SEC West, as Slive said “makes sense,” and how to juggle the resulting lopsided schedule.
Big step for Missouri’s conference future may come Tuesday
Multiple sources have told The Star of plans that day for a University of Missouri Board of Curators meeting at which the Tigers’ position in conference realignment scenarios will be discussed. The most likely result, if a simple majority of the seven curators with voting privilege favors the move, is formal authorization of MU to explore admission to another conference. But there are other matters to be considered, including candidates to fill the position of University of Missouri system president, currently held on an interim basis by Steve Owens.
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