After the meeting, Dr. Bernie Machen, Chair of the Southeastern Conference Presidents and Chancellors, issued the following statement:
“The SEC Presidents and Chancellors met today and reaffirmed our satisfaction with the present 12 institutional alignment. We recognize, however, that future conditions may make it advantageous to expand the number of institutions in the league. We discussed criteria and process associated with expansion. No action was taken with respect to any institution including Texas A&M.”
What does that mean? Texas A&M likely won’t be joining the SEC in 2012, but they still could at any time in the future. Machen did say that “…future conditions may make it advantageous to expand the number of institutions in the league.”
So it appears that the SEC will take a wait-and-see approach again on conference expansion. Or it could mean that they are waiting for a 14th, 15th or 16th school to apply for consideration.
The SEC also doesn’t want to “invite” a school to join and risk litigation from that schools current conference. The school must apply for inclusion in the conference and Texas A&M may not have done that yet.
Clemson, Florida State and Georgia Tech were three schools rumored this weekend to be interested in joining the SEC. But most analysts believe that the SEC wouldn’t add a school where they currently have a television market presence.
Other possible schools that could move to the SEC in the future include Missouri, NC State and Virginia Tech. The SEC currently has no school in Missouri, Kansas, North Carolina or Virginia.