BCS Conference Realignment: SEC Blew It by Choosing Texas A&M and Missouri

You have to wonder exactly what the people in the conference rooms of the SEC were thinking when they finalized their plans for expanding to fourteen teams.

In what is the most dominant football conference in the country, the expansion plans had a tremendous opportunity to put a near lock on BCS Championships for at least the next decade.  All the SEC had to do is swoop in like vultures on the rotting carcass of the Big 12 and grab the crown jewels.  

Then came the big expansion news of 2011.  The SEC adds Missouri and Texas A&M. Huh? 

Hey, SEC, what’s wrong with Texas and Oklahoma?  Or Oklahoma State?  Or some combination of those?  Or maybe all three and THEN A&M?  Such a union would have not made a super conference.  It would have made a mega conference. 

But it’s just not going to happen.  The SEC blew it.  It settled for the year’s supply of turtle wax when it could have had the new car.

The more you think about it, the more difficult it is to justify bypassing two of the country’s most tradition and victory-rich teams in the Longhorns and Sooners.  It is also hard to justify skipping over the Cowboys, who are on the ascent in the polls and national presence.

An SEC with Texas and Oklahoma would be scary.  Not only in terms of the conference play and the potential for total domination of the BCS, but in terms of television reach, revenue and a huge potential recruiting advantage. 

Who would want to play in the PAC 12 or Big Ten when you could play NFL-caliber teams on national TV every week?  The Big East would be dead

Instead, the SEC honchos blew it.  They settled for second-rate programs.  Missouri and Texas A&M are going to be middle of the road teams at best, and at worst they will be roadkill—especially if they continue to play the way they have. 

The Aggies have more blown second half leads this year than conference victories.  Their defense has been absolutely awful—not just in the heartbreaking losses to Oklahoma State and Arkansas.  It was shaky in the opener against SMU and has never really been on track. 

Were it not for their offensive play the Aggies would be looking at much worse than a  .500 conference record.

Missouri has hardly been better.  At least the Tigers were respectable in losses to Oklahoma, Arizona State and Kansas State.  Still the Tigers rank seventh in the Big 12 with a 2-4 conference record. 

It is hard to imagine either Mike Sherman or Gary Pinkel looking at their respective teams’ current body of work and thinking a move to the SEC is a good thing.

It’s equally hard for the SEC to be doing the same, especially with the Longhorns, Sooners and Cowboys out there looking for a stable conference to call home.

College football is a game of results and a game where “what could have been” is the lament of the defeated.  In five years the SEC schools will look at the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M and wonder what could have been. 

By then, Texas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will have found a new conference home and the rest of the football world will be thankful for the SEC’s short-sightedness.