Texas A&M and the Southeastern Conference will plow through any red tape such as legal threats and exit fees and get hitched, with the Aggies beginning competition next year for the first time in a conference with no other Texas school.
There is rejoicing in College Station and remorse in the Big 12, where interim commissioner Chuck Neinas said a few days ago he’d take a shot at keeping A&M in the fold. but he never got the chance.
It wouldn’t have mattered. The Aggies had emotionally checked out of the conference weeks ago and now will follow Nebraska and Colorado through the Big 12 exit portal.
The procession may not be over, with some uncertainty surrounding Missouri.

The Southeastern Conference may be an option for the Tigers as well. The SEC has thought enough about Mizzou as a 14th team that it has explored the idea of switching Auburn to the East Division.

If an offer is forthcoming, Missouri’s decision isn’t easy, or is it?

More than a century of relationships and rivalries, primarily with Kansas, are embedded in the Big 12, which exists on more solid ground than a week ago.

Then, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State had bags packed for the Pac-12, with perhaps Texas and Texas Tech in tow. but on Tuesday, the Pac-12 gave a stiff arm to expansion, and the Sooners publicly reaffirmed a commitment to the Big 12.

But a move to the SEC for Missouri would mean membership in a conference that has no concept of the maddening uncertainty that has become business as usual in the Big 12.

SEC football rules supreme, and realignment is football-driven. No more wondering about the Tigers’ place in the world if (when?) Texas and Oklahoma get another relocation hankering.

Word is football coach Gary Pinkel, the conscience for frustrated Big 12 programs, and athletic director Mike Alden see moving as the better option.

Chancellor Brady Deaton, chairman of the Big 12 board of directors, has supported the current conference relationship but didn’t offer a long- or short-term commitment to the Big 12 on Thursday.

Neinas, a former Big Eight commissioner, said Friday he believes Missouri will stay.

The SEC insists that it is preparing for life with 13 members, as strange as that appears. some have pointed to the Big Ten, which housed 11 members for two decades until Nebraska joined this year as the odd-number model, but the difference is the SEC would exist with uneven divisions while the Big Ten was one big odd standing.

Missouri was one of five schools that met at a Kansas City hotel on Jan. 12, 1907, to form what informally was known as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association.

That day, the Tigers played the first basketball in their history, and the third game was played in Kansas City. by then, the school had played about 25 football games in KC. The connection runs that deep, and throughout the realignment process the potential impact on Kansas City is never far from my thoughts.

What would happen to MU-KU football at Arrowhead or some of the nation’s best regular-season basketball games?

The Big 12 would survive without the Tigers, but Kansas City would be a lesser sports town without them.

Missouri has thought about this before. The school has made inquiries to the Big Ten, and the Tigers were tied to that conference through speculation in last year’s round of realignment.

This potential move looks south, where the Tigers could join the conference that has won the last five college football national championships, the league that is A&M’s new home.

The Aggies are planning an SEC celebration tonight at the school that to them will feel more like a University of Texas liberation. A&M’s move is as much about separating itself from the Longhorns, who have always looked down on the Aggies as an annoying little brother.

A&M is willing to surrender a gridiron rivalry with Texas that dates to 1894 to escape Bevo and the Network. The Aggies are headed to a conference where, at least in the short-term, they figure to be no better than the middle of the pack.

If Missouri is next, the motivation would be different, even more reasonable. Stability, not spite, would be the catalyst.

Would the Tigers leave?

The heart (tradition, rivalries) may say no, but the head (stability, security) may prevail.

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