Instant Analysis Texas A&M to the SEC?Pete Fiutak If this really is true and the Houston Chronicle is right and Texas A&M really is going to make the move to the SEC, while Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State go to the Pac 10, consider it the dream of all dream world for Aggie fans. It’s the perfect scenario that no one considered possible with Texas and A&M so closely tied as rivals and with so many key politicians involved. Assuming the two will keep on playing despite being in different conferences, this would be a phenomenal move and it would be the moment when A&M finally made the move needed to become a steady superpower. A&M wouldn’t exactly own Texas recruiting all of a sudden, but the pitch would look a whole bunch better. Why play in the Pac 10 in a bad time zone and with no one on the East Coast watching (when you’re not playing USC) when you can play in the SEC and be in the nation’s premier league each and every week? Sure, Arkansas, LSU, and others SEC programs will still mine the Lone Star state for talent, but A&M would be in the discussion for more top Texas prospects than ever before. This move would also signal a growing up moment for the program and the university. If Texas doesn’t follow the lead and if it really does play in the Pac 10, A&M will finally escape the little brother syndrome and would have the potential to create a very, very interesting niche as the only Texas school in the SEC. Again, this wouldn’t guarantee that all the four and five-star recruits would come in, but they’d give A&M a much longer and more honest look. The Pac 10 might be turning into something special, but even in its improved form it’s not going to be the SEC. The Pac 10 has several great academic institutions, a fantastic basketball tradition (although not lately), and it has new markets and fan bases to make it an attractive fit for many Big 12 schools. However, the SEC is football, football, football, football, and football, and considering Texas A&M wants its football program to be bigger and better, this would be a phenomenal move. Matt Zemek If the Houston Chronicle is correct in its Sunday night report, a number of other realities would become quite clear. A Texas A&M move to the SEC would enable a portion of this conference realignment process to proceed in an orderly fashion.For one thing, goodbye to the Big 12 as we’ve known it. The conference would either die or be remade by teams from Conference USA. Over the weekend, Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe made some aggressive moves to try to keep the Big 12 together as a 10-team entity, and perhaps open the door for new arrivals from the Mountain West (TCU?), but with A&M bolting for the SEC, it becomes that much harder to envision the Big 12 staying relatively intact, with Texas as the linchpin. In essence, A&M’s move to the SEC would ensure that Texas – bereft of not just Nebraska and Colorado but also its foremost rival – would have precious little incentive to stay in the Big 12. Beebe made a big late push and scored a few touchdowns in the PR realm, but the problem is that he trailed by 35 points entering the fourth quarter. The likelihood of Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State going to the Pac-10 is now 95 percent.The second key result of this movement on the conference alignment chessboard is that Kansas and Utah are now the two leading candidates for the final spot in the Pac-10’s very likely 16-team reincarnation. Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott has paid a visit to Salt Lake City, so even though Kansas’s basketball prestige is a huge lure, Utah is very much on Scott’s radar. At any rate, KU and Utah are clearly the only two teams left in a Pac-16 world after the Texas/Texas Tech/Oklahoma/Oklahoma state exodus to the Pac-16 becomes official. Utah would love to go to the Pac-10, but Kansas – left in the cold by an imploding Big 12 – would be even more desperate to land in Scott’s conference. The Mountain West would not give Kansas the level of competition it craves. (If Utah does beat out KU for the Pac-10’s final spot in a 16-team superconference, a KU/Kansas State/Missouri move to the Mountain West would seem to be a slam dunk.)The third element of an A&M sojourn to the Southeastern Conference is that TV contracts would merit re-examination and very possibly, a re-working. ESPN just signed a big deal to televise SEC sports, so A&M – which brings the Houston market – would reshape the financial calculus. Moreover, since A&M’s soon-to-be-former league, the Big 12, was televised by the ESPN/ABC alliance, Fox Sports Net, and even Versus (they shared the Big 12 football package), there’s going to be some kind of fight over broadcast rights and terms for the newly-drawn leagues that ultimately emerge at the end of the realignment drama.Fourth, the creation of a 13-team SEC might not be immediately followed by the addition of a 14th team. Much as the Big Ten is waiting for Notre Dame to reconsider – possibly as long as a full 12 months – a similar dynamic could very well take shape in the South. The SEC has a great thing going with its football identity, and the league – which would probably go to 16 teams in the next 2-3 years - would be willing to wait a year and see which schools it should add. The superconference movement should extend beyond the Pac-10, but it could be 12 months until we see four 16-team leagues.Fifth, as a result of the Big 12 either dying or being diminished, the next conference to sweat – at least in the realm of football – is the Big East. The ACC signed a huge – surprisingly huge, in the opinion of many – coverage deal with ESPN, so that’s going to buy an enormous amount of leverage going forward. The Big East will remain intact as a basketball entity, but the league’s football makeup could well be altered – and very possibly dismantled – now that the Big 12 has no attractive (remaining) properties to be plucked by the Big Ten. Maybe the Big Ten swipes Maryland, but that figures to be it.Over the next two years, the ACC and SEC might swap some teams, but the Big East – if it changes shape at all – will be downsized. It won’t grow. That’s yet another part of an A&M move to the SEC.
AUSTIN — Texas A&M regent Gene Stallings says he wants the Big 12 to survive — and would vote to keep the Aggies in the league if they don’t get a much better offer from another conference.Stallings told The Associated Press on Monday that keeping the Big 12 together “would tickle me to death.”Stallings coached Alabama to a football national championship in 1992. If Texas A&M moves, he’d rather see the Aggies go to the Southeastern Conference than the Pac-10.But Stallings says the last thing he wants to see is the Big 12 break apart. Aggies officials have met with Pac-10 and SEC officials in recent days.Regents at Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have scheduled meetings Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss conference allegiances. Stallings says he expects Texas A&M regents to meet later this week.
Mizzou would open up a HUGE TV/Media market.
Fuck Mizzou.
Indeed.
Mizzou? Really? Please, TV market or not, they add nothing to the SEC. That's like bringing in another South Carolina. Hell, bring in Syracuse. We'd get the New York market.And we don't need any more raod games 8000 miles from home.
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