College Football Realignment: Another Domino Falls for Texas A&M to the SEC

Texas A&M received a letter from the Big 12 today confirming a "mutual waiver of legal claims." This is a response to the letter from A&M President R. Bowen Loftin's request last week for the Big 12 to outline the procedures for leaving the conference.

In layman's terms, Texas A&M and the Big 12 have agreed that they will not take legal action against each other at this time and everything is in place for the Aggies to leave the conference. 

Expect the Aggies to officially announce they are leaving the Big 12 sometime this week. After that announcement, the Aggies will submit an application for membership into the Southeastern Conference.

The SEC will likely mull over the application for a couple of days before admitting Texas A&M as the 13th member of the conference for the 2012 athletic year.

If the SEC takes a few days to approve the application, look for an official announcement of A&M to the SEC to occur sometime during the bye week between the SMU game and Idaho football games.

When A&M leaves the Big 12, the conference will immediately begin the process of replacing the Ags. The Big 12 must have 10 teams in the conference when the 2012 season begins for the conference's television contract to be valid.

Texas Athletic Director Deloss Dodds and various media outlets have reported that Notre Dame is the number one target of the Big 12 if Texas A&M joins the SEC. Unfortunately for Dodds and the Big 12, Notre Dame is not interested in joining a conference.

BYU, Houston, and SMU have also been mentioned as possible expansion targets for the Big 12.