The worst kept secret in college sports became official on Monday evening. After months of backroom deals, secret meetings and legal maneuvering, Texas A&M was finally, officially announced as the Southeastern Conference’s 13th member, effective for the 2012-2013 conference season. Congratulations Aggies fans, you got what you wished! And college football’s off the field news just got a whole more interesting.
Speaking in Birmingham, AL on Monday evening, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, confirmed A&M’s admission:
“In the 78 year history of the SEC, the conference had accepted the membership applications of only two institutions—Arkansas and South Carolina. Texas A&M is now the third. We remain optimistic that Texas A&M will be a member of the SEC and have started to look at schedules for 2012-13 involving 13 teams.”
And there you have it. No more secret talks with Slive behind the scenes. No more lawsuits from outside factions. A&M will be an SEC member. What started as phone call from Texas A&M Dr. Bowen Loftin shortly after SEC Media Days, became a reality today.
What’s most interesting about that statement though is that last line: “We have started to look at schedules for 2012-13 involving 13 teams.”
Why is that so interesting? Well for quite a while now, it’s been a foregone conclusion that the SEC wouldn’t accept a 13th without having a 14th team to balance schedules and divisions. After all, how do you think Nick Saban or Gene Chizik would feel about having one more team to go through to get to Atlanta that Will Muschamp or Derek Dooley doesn’t? Without adding a 14th team, the only other option would be to scrap the divisions entirely, and just invite the two best teams to Atlanta, something that (at least to this writer) doesn’t seem feasible at this point.
But while all that gets settled, for now it looks like Slive and the SEC are content at 13. “For now,” of course, being the key word. From later in the statement:
“When Texas A&M joins our conference, we don’t have immediate plans for a 14th member. We aren’t thinking in terms of numbers. We think about the strength of the SEC and the attractiveness of Texas A&M as an institution.”
Like everything that comes out of the mouths of college administrators, Presidents and Commissioners these days, that seemed like a loaded last paragraph. While the conference doesn’t have “immediate,” plans for a 14th member, one does have to suspect that one is coming. Again, that whole unbalanced divisions thing won’t fly for very long, if at all.
Either way, this is the first official step, in what we all expect to be the end of the Big XII Conference as we know it, and more than likely the first step in college football anarchy. It is already being reported that Missouri has a Regents meeting planned for tonight (although for all we know, it could just be to address the subject of “What the hell was Gary Pinkel thinking when he iced his kicker the other night”), and it is also being reported that Oklahoma will start the application process to the Pac-12 by the end of this month. From there, it seems as though the chips will fall, with the remainder of the Big XII being gobbled up by some combination of the Pac-12, SEC and Big East or ACC. Some, like Iowa State and Baylor could even be left on the outside looking in.
And of course, that is all under the assumption that when Slive and his SEC cohorts decide to expand, it’ll stop at 14 as opposed to 16. It truly would turn into anarchy if they went to 16, with the Big East and ACC the most susceptible to being picked off further.
But for now, all we know is that A&M will be in the SEC starting next year.
Buckle your chin straps Aggies fans, your football competition just got a lot tougher.
And to you fans, buckle your chinstraps as well. The next few weeks are certainly going to be interesting. And we’re not talking about anything that’s going to happen on the field.
