Barry Trammel says Aggies and Tigers will regret move to SEC

Conference realignment: Missouri, Texas A&M will regret leaving the Big 12

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Missouri: Regrets. The Tigers actually will be fine with SEC football. I think they'll win their share of games, make a bowl virtually every year, make a run at a division title or two. Might even win the SEC East sometime. In other words, do about what Mizzou has done in the Big 12 the last 6-8 years. But Missouri is going to miss Big 12 basketball. Its games with Kansas. The conference tournament in Kansas City, which has served as a Mizzou reunion lo these many years. Neither can be replicated in the SEC, and when the Tigers are playing South Carolina or somebody in an 11:30 a.m. Thursday game in the first round of the SEC Tournament, with maybe 300 Mizzou fans and 4,000 total in the Georgia Dome, Missouri people will look at each other and say, what have we done?

Texas A&M: Regrets. The Aggies left the Big 12 for one reason. To get away from Texas. Except the Ags are going to realize, they didn't get away from the Longhorns. In the boardrooms and courtrooms and teacher lounges all across Texas, there will be Texas Exes, grinning at A&M's struggles to overcome Alabama or LSU or Auburn. And the only satisfaction A&M ever got in this bad-blood rivalry – beating Texas – now is gone.

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It's hard to argue with Trammel's reasoning--at least for the short  term. Mizzou had to know what they were giving up in basketball to get what they wanted in football and overall conference prestige. The Big 12 is a good football conference and a great basketball conference. The SEC is a good basketball conference and a great football conference. When the checks are cut, great football wins over great basketball every single time.

The last two additions to the SEC--South Carolina and Arkansas--have both been made better off over the last two decades. Both are recruiting better, playing better and competing for conference championships. Arkansas has cashed in on a BCS appearance and South Carolina is just as poised as anyone in the league to make another run at the SEC East title.

So in 2012 and maybe 2013, Missouri and Texas A&M may suffer a little homesickness. But we all know that's a temporary malady.