I've always thought about losing Vandy and Arky and picking up GT and Tulane. That trip to New Orleans would be fun for the entire conference.
SEC Expansion (Poll)
- Thread starter Delta Don
- Start date
In terms of athletics?
They have been good at basketball in many years, not just this year.
Vandy was the 2007 SEC regular season and tourney champs in baseball and beat Michigan in the NCAA regionals.
Their Golf team is top 15
Their Mens track & Field team finished 14th in the South region, ahead of Ole Miss.
Their Women's basketball team has beaten Clemson, Iowa State, and Duke this year.
Their Womens Track and Field team finished 11th in the South Regional, ahead of MSU, Ole Miss, Auburn, and South Florida (among others).
Even in football they have more all time wins than a lot of noteworthy programs. USM loses to almost every SEC team they play, and people are talking about them? They are 34-95 against the SEC...that is more Vandy like than Vandy. They (USM) don't mind getting beaten by anyone-anytime-anywhere...sure, they have beaten us a few times but even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then. In the case of USM, the past two times it was DuBose and before that Stallings in a transition year. If we lost Vandy and gained them, what would we have? They just fired a good coach because he could not win in CUSA!
Vandy's academic prowess is enough reason alone to want them in the SEC. Those numbers mean more than athletics scores anyway. Your comment about Vandy holding up the conference academically is misplaced. They already do provide significant assistance to SEC academic numbers, and are far and away the top academic institution in the league. We are not NFL. This is COLLEGE athletics you are talking about.
Vandy will "probably" never win a BCS championship, but they do win a few and scare some folks. They beat UGA last year and Tennessee. Ole Miss, and Arkansas the year before. This year they beat Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Tennessee scored 16 points in the 4th quarter to beat them by 1. That same UT team beat USM by 20. Vandy would probably own CUSA.
Are they a great football program? No...but that is no reason to "dump them."
Your post was very "athletics over academics." The University of Alabama is more than a football team that just happens to have a school. If that is what you want, you should become an NFL fan and forget about NCAA sports all together.
If we should dump Vandy, then the ACC should have dumped Wake a long time ago - Vandy has beaten Wake twice this decade. Vandy is larger than Wake, has a larger stadium than Wake, and has a much better winning percentage all-time than Wake...but then Wake won the ACC last year...who knows, with parity, Vandy may win the SEC next season. The way things are headed, I would almost wager that if Johnson stays there we will see them in the SECCG within a decade or so. The 85 scholarship rule is catching them up...3 of their SEC losses were by a TD or less. They could have conceivably been 5-3 in the SEC this year.
Northwestern has a much worse all time record than Vandy...the big 10 should dump them too, eh? Pay no attention to the titles sandwiched between 1-10 seasons.
If things continue the way they are headed and parity becomes the norm, we would look pretty stupid for dumping Vandy to pick up someone who is no better athletically and vastly inferior academically. Dumping them for another team that would become the doormat in their place is ridiculous.
If we are going to talk about dumping a team just because they suck at football, MSU would be the team to dump. They have a terrible all time record (worse than Vandy), they are mediocre academically, and Starkville is Stark.
my $0.02
Not trying to sound like a smart arse but can you explain how Vanderbilt's academic numbers holds up the conference academically? Is there some sort of conference academic requirement? I was under the impression that the NCAA not the conference set the eligibility requirements and that a member institution could impose higher admission standards but could not go below the standards set forth by the NCAA.
In the SEC West: Rice University. Rice would add a strong academic school to the West to offset Vandy in the East. Rice would open the Houston television market to the SEC and create more recruiting opportunities for SEC schools in Texas. Rice already has an SEC sized stadium for the fans that like to follow their teams, and a road trip to Houston would be more fun that some of the other SEC West locations. Rice would immediately add a strong Baseball program to the SEC West.
In the SEC East: The logical move is to invite Georgia Tech to return. It is time to bury the hatchet from all the ill will cause by the arrogance of the Yellow Jackets in leaving the conference. GT was a traditional rival for several SEC schools including Alabama, Atlanta is not a bad road trip, and the Yellow Jackets actually won a MNC after leaving the SEC. Now with Coach Johnson they should be competitive again--even by SEC standards. However, Grant Field may need to be expanded up to current SEC stadium sizes.
In the SEC East: The logical move is to invite Georgia Tech to return. It is time to bury the hatchet from all the ill will cause by the arrogance of the Yellow Jackets in leaving the conference. GT was a traditional rival for several SEC schools including Alabama, Atlanta is not a bad road trip, and the Yellow Jackets actually won a MNC after leaving the SEC. Now with Coach Johnson they should be competitive again--even by SEC standards. However, Grant Field may need to be expanded up to current SEC stadium sizes.
i really like the idea of georgia tech and memphis. thats my vote. or la tech in the west
If the powers-that-be at Alabama A&M weren't so stuck on hanging onto a tradition that's gotten them basically NOWHERE, that would actually make sense.
I went to that college, was born, raised, and still live in Huntsville, and I love A&M to death, but somebody somewhere has to realize that school is a lot better than what they shoot for every year. Take Troy University, for example. If Troy keeps their current rate of progess, we just might see their football team taking a stab at a national championship someday.
A&M has an above-average sporting community, and great coaches. I mean, some absolutely great coaches. The basketball team is always competing for the conference title, even playing in the NCAA tournament, at least twice this decade.
That school deserves more than what the SWAC has to offer.
Louisiana Tech?
Seriously?
I live in Ruston. I watched Tech every home game they had. Aside from playing over their heads to almost beat Hawaii in OT, they're not...well...good. They're a regional team, same as all the other LA teams that aren't LSU.
That being said, I grew up watching the Bulldogs, and I'll watch them whenever I can. I just don't think they belong in the SEC (or WAC, for that matter-I think they're due a spot in CUSA when one comes open).
QUOTE]
They are perfect for the SEC fans. They get a cupcake victory but they can say they beat an SEC team. What a coup that would be.
Yes, come to Virginia, then I could get SEC merch (Alabama merch that is) in the local stores and would get more SEC games on tv for regional coverage instead of ACC games all the time. I here Old Dominion is starting up a program . They are in the Tidewater area of 1.6 million people (I'm kidding about adding them).
Va Tech was in the SEC back in the day (the 30's I think)
I do not see the logic behind adding 2 or 4 more teams to the SEC. I could see Arkansas leaving one day for the Big 12. If that happened I would like to see them replaced with SMU. Open up the Dallas market to the SEC. The only other move would be to ship Auburn to the SEC East and dump either Vandy or SC and replace them with Rice. Then, you have the Houston market opened as well.
The only other change I would make is add 1 game to the SEC schedule in football. Give every team the 5 games VS division foes and 4 VS the other division. (2 permenant and 2 rotating). With the 12 game schedules each team still gets 3 non-conf games.
Imagine a potential Schedule:
Army (non-conf)
Kentucky
Rice
SMU
Georgia
Ole Miss
N Illinois (non-conf)
Tennessee (perm east opponent)
Miss St
LSU
Tulane (non-conf)
Auburn (perm east opponent)
The only other change I would make is add 1 game to the SEC schedule in football. Give every team the 5 games VS division foes and 4 VS the other division. (2 permenant and 2 rotating). With the 12 game schedules each team still gets 3 non-conf games.
Imagine a potential Schedule:
Army (non-conf)
Kentucky
Rice
SMU
Georgia
Ole Miss
N Illinois (non-conf)
Tennessee (perm east opponent)
Miss St
LSU
Tulane (non-conf)
Auburn (perm east opponent)
I'm just not sure I'd see the point in shuffling things around without a clear purpose or goal. Dismissing or replacing teams, to me is just keeping up with the Joneses. The SEC has tradition and pride in its teams, even if even SMU and Rice could properly replace Arkansas and Vandy (I don't see it), I think something like that would affect the SEC's reputation negatively.
I personally think the SEC either needs to hold what it has together, or look towards aggressive expansion. Through their last expansion the SEC was able to create something that both made everyone a lot of money and something that people respected. I worry that the SEC could eventually lose Arkansas and that could tip the balance of power towards the Big 12 or ACC. That's why I think either the SEC's focus needs to be on retaining what it has, or being aggressive and building something that is both bigger and stronger than anything anyone else has.
I would rather the status quo unless Arkansas bolts. If the SEC did decide to expand I would say add 4 teams. (Assuming Arkansas stays, go after Missouri, SMU, Rice and USF.) The reason is simple, you would have the Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Kansas City, B-Ham, Atlanta, Tampa, Nashville media markets locked up. If Arkansas decided to bolt I would then go after Tulsa to get the Tulsa/OKC market.
Divisions: (Don't split by Geography)
A Div
SMU
Vandy
SC
UA
AU
Tenn
Ole Miss
Miss St
B Div
Rice
Kentucky
USF
UGA
LSU
Ark/Tulsa
UF
Missouri
7 SEC games VS your division
4 rotating SEC games VS other division
1 Non- Conf game.
You will see a lot of dead bodies before another team from Alabama is added to the SEC. A team like South Alabama getting in a conference like the SEC is the equivalent to a person winning a 100 + million dollar mega ball lottery. Why would Alabama or it's fans want to give that amount of power to another team in the state, while becoming weaker?
You will not see a three team SEC state until the state's that have one team
add another, like Louisiana for instance. And LSU would fight that tooth and nail.
An expansion SEC team will most likely come from an outside state or possible Florida IMO.
You will not see a three team SEC state until the state's that have one team
add another, like Louisiana for instance. And LSU would fight that tooth and nail.
An expansion SEC team will most likely come from an outside state or possible Florida IMO.
Obviously the goal here is to weaken the conference.
Much better than adding 2 teams from this list.
Much better than adding 2 teams from this list.
First of all, I think we need to think of contraction BEFORE expansion. I have long said that Arkansas has no business in the SEC. For any of you that have been to Fayetteville, you can relate. The people, culture, and everything out there in the Ozark mountain region relate more to the Midwest than they do to us. If if were up to me, we would expel Ark and bring in South Florida to replace them. USF is one of the biggest TV markets in the country(Miami/Dade area) and would strengthen the whole conference. Any expansion beyond that would be counterproductive, imo....
TU would have no business being in the SEC. For one thing, they don't bring a huge TV market(Tulsa is about the same size of Bham) and they geographically and culturally would not be a good fit(Oklahoma is very conservative, but it is NOT part of the South).
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