(08-25-2015 11:34 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(08-25-2015 04:18 PM)JRsec Wrote:  These thoughts are partly mine and partly those of one of our Big 12 posters.

What do you think would be the response of Texas if the SEC offered, in pursuit of an academic alliance with the ACC, Kansas, Iowa State, Oklahoma and Texas membership? Do you think the Longhorns might be willing to come to the SEC if their mission was to spearhead a Southern Academic Consortium including the AAU schools of the SEC, ACC, and Southern privates not affiliated with the two conferences: Tulane, Tulsa, Rice, & Emory.

In light of Sankey's recent comments pertaining to the SEC's academic pursuits how far do you think such an alliance could prove fruitful in joint research projects throughout the Midwest and Southeast?

The resulting conference would be quite interesting:

Arkansas, Iowa State, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas

Alabama, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Miss State, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt

Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee

At this point does Academic pursuits harm or help the Athletic pursuits of the SEC? I'd say given the basketball abilities of Iowa State and Kansas that it would be a whale of a win, win, even if the cultural fit wasn't quite perfect for the whole conference, it certainly would be for the new Western division.

If we did do this then I would go ahead and add a couple more strong academic schools and go to 20. The numbers on scheduling would work much better.

If we're partnering with the ACC for the long haul then there's no reason to anticipate a NC or VA school being added to our roster at any point.

How about just adding an Atlantic division of 6 schools: Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Virginia and Syracuse or Notre Dame.


Now while I don't really favor that this is what I could favor instead:

Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia
Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Alabama, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Texas A&M
Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas

Now you have 9 AAU programs, all of the South's flagship programs, and 6 basketball brands. And all with a more manageable 20 schools.