Is Mizzou a ‘trap’ game for Alabama?

I’m just looking under the hood at a not-to-shabby Missouri offense coming in to face a suddenly vulnerable defensive secondary. The backfield that was already young and already showing it against the not-to-shabby offenses of Texas A&M and Arkansas needs growth. If you watched those games, you saw a lot of guys running around in the open field. There have been a few costly injuries too, but the loss of Trevon Diggs is going to hurt. Some guys are gonna need to step up back there. But I am not suggesting that Alabama will lose to Missouri at home this Saturday.

Missouri has what could be an NFL starter at quarterback someday. Drew Lock doesn’t have stellar numbers. He’s just under 60% completion-wise and has a blue collar-ish 137.7 QB rating. But he is a fourth year senior, he’s a good athlete and has a John Elway, Brett Favre hellwithit attitude. He’s also playing behind one of the SEC’s better pass blocking offensive lines. Missouri may be a 3-2 team, but their losses were to Georgia and South Carolina, and they put up 29 and 35 points respectively.

Alabama’s offense almost couldn’t get any better. That is a historic statement, y’all.  Tua Tagovailoa has been unearthly in his first year as a starter. He has a fleet of receivers to throw to, and he’s been spreading it around like a Democrat on election day. The guy had more touchdowns than incompletions against Arkansas. Alabama has averaged 56 points per game through the first six outings, and Tua hasn’t taken a single 4th quarter snap since 2nd and 26 in overtime against Georgia in the National Championship Game last January.

Forget any notion that Alabama’s front seven is vulnerable, porous, suspect or any other adjective meaning “less than capable.” It’s one of the meanest bunches that Bama has fielded since the 2011-12 teams. Besides, Mizzou throws first and runs later, just like the Big 12 teams they left to join the SEC. In fact, handing the ball off to a running back is almost a trick play for them.

So no, I am not suggesting that Mizzou notches the upset. I am suggesting that this game will be a tougher row to hoe than we’ve seen yet this season, and that Bama’s Heisman favorite QB may need to see some action late Saturday night.

Bama still wins it.

Alabama 49, Missouri 33

For Mizzou Coach Gary Pinkel, a two-game suspension seems right

No jokes about the SEC from this space.

Overnight, Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel was arrested under suspicion for impaired driving by Boone County law enforcement. He was booked and made the $500 bail.

Earlier today, both he and athletics director Mike Alden released statements regarding the incident. 

Pinkel:

"Last night after practice, I met some friends for dinner. After dinner, I was stopped by a Boone County officer and received a citation for impaired driving. First and foremost, I am very disappointed in myself for my lack of judgment in this instance. Nobody should drink and drive, including me. My staff and I constantly reinforce with each of our players the importance of not putting yourself into a position such as this. I did not follow that here and for that, I sincerely apologize to the University of Missouri, to our administration, to the Board of Curators and to our fans. I have already met with our staff and communicated with our players and have apologized to them. I accept full responsibility for my actions and will abide by whatever course of action our leadership deems appropriate."

Alden’s statement was terse:

"We are extremely disappointed in Gary’s lack of judgment," Alden said in his statement. "He is known as a man of great character and integrity. However, this absolutely goes against everything we stand for, and everything that he teaches his players in regards to our social responsibilities. We hold ourselves to very high standards, and this is a very serious breach of those responsibilities. We are gathering facts and will take action appropriately, and when those actions are determined, we will communicate them publicly."

In August of 2010, Pinkel suspended two players on his team for the first two games of the season following their arrests for DUI. Having Pinkel miss the Tigers’ last two games of the 2011 season would be appropriate and consistent with punishment he has meted out in the past.

To those clamoring for his dismissal—just stop. Pinkel’s reputation as a man of good character and the goodwill he’s established throughout the coaching profession is more than enough of a mitigating circumstance. The timing of this incident is truly unfortunate, and Alden may decide that a simple suspension in this toxic environment doesn’t go far enough. Pinkel is a good man who made a one-time mistake in judgment. Let he who is without sin, y’all…

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SEC East welcomes Missouri

Early Sunday morning, the Southeastern Conference made it official (no, for real this time). The University of Missouri will join the SEC and compete in all sports for the 2012-13 academic year.

ESPN’s Andy Katz reports that the Tigers will join the SEC East. GatorSports.com’s Pat Dooley reports the same. UPDATE: Dooley’s story is up now. These are credible enough sources to say with some safety that the league chose the least disruptive option in determining conference alignments for the two new members of the country’s premier college conference.

These reports also validate the news from late last month, when it was learned that Missouri had the necessary votes to enter the league barring any legal obstacles and pursuant to the divisional alignment that puts Texas A&M in the SEC West and Missouri in the SEC East.

There were a solid bloc of “NO” votes in the conference if Missouri and Texas A&M both entered the SEC West and it appears that the sanity that bloc insisted on has prevailed.

Eventually, the league may want to consider a nine-game conference schedule, without which teams in the conference might not see members of the other division on their schedule but once ever 426 years, or something. At least for the 2012 football season, it appears an eight-game conference schedule will be in place, with permanent cross-divisional rivalries such as Alabama – Tennessee and LSU – Florida preserved for well into the future.

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Sanity prevails: Missouri to SEC East, Auburn stays in West

Cooler heads. Common sense. Ahh, sanity.

According to Saturday’s column by the Birmingham News’ Jon Solomon, Missouri has the necessary nine votes it needs to be accepted as the Southeastern Conference’s 14th member. Barring any financial or legal SNAFU’s along the way, Mizzou is set to join the East Division of the conference.

Placing the Missouri Tigers in the East and Texas A&M in the West preserves a divisional alignment for existing conference members that’s been in place since the SEC expanded to 12 teams in 1992 and became the first major conference to begin divisional play.

Dismissed was the utterly preposterous notion of Auburn moving to the SEC East to “accommodate” the addition of Missouri and A&M to the SEC West. That “accommodation” would have included wrecking traditional rivalries like the Iron Bowl and today’s storied Alabama – Tennessee showdown and forcing conference members Florida and Georgia to reschedule their traditional rivalries with Florida State and Georgia Tech. It would also have upset the balance of divisional power by sending one of the six schools in the top half of conference competitiveness to the other side.

That idea was a non-starter when it was floated and its support went straight downhill from there. Had Missouri’s application proposal included membership in the SEC West, support for adding the 14th conference member would have resulted in a coin flip vote—a prospect that the SEC front office would never have put before the membership for a vote.

An even more idiotic notion included moving Auburn to the East and developing a nine-game SEC schedule, a proposal dreamed up by someone who is really bad at math. Nine, being an odd number, means half of the conference plays five games at home and four away while the other half plays four at home and five away. If you think an SEC school is going to give up the revenue boom of a conference home game every other year to “accommodate” an Auburn escape to the SEC East, not only are you bad at math, your business acumen sucks, too.

Some in the national media have scoffed at the bloc of SEC schools who were adamant about preserving traditional SEC rivalries and power balance. They point to the likely end of the Texas – Texas A&M and Missouri – Kansas rivalries and cry “hypocrisy.”

Give me a break. The SEC and its member schools should be looking out for what’s in the best interest of the SEC. The SEC brand is so marketable because of the rivalries between the member schools. Destroying those rivalries harms the brand. Protecting them enhances it and establishing a new divisional rivalry among the newest members makes perfect sense. It’s not the SEC’s job to preserve Big 12 rivalries. If the Big 12 can’t keep its conference members together, then their failure isn’t the SEC’s cross to bear.

So please stop the whining.

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Missouri Chancellor Brady Deaton granted power to decide on conference alignment

University of Missouri’s Board of Curators punted Friday afternoon, following two days of closed-door meetings. The Board delegated the authority to negotiate and make decisions based on what he thinks is best for the University.

As TeamSpeedKills.com points out, this should sound familiar. A similar vote and decision were made back on October 4. It doesn’t appear that much has changed with today’s news, other than the fact that Brady Deaton has been given an incremental increase in authority.

Previously, he was delegated the authority to “explore” conference options. According to various media sources on Twitter, today’s decision grants him the authority to negotiate contracts on behalf of the University. One would think that the executive leadership at a major university already had such authority, right? They can always discuss terms and negotiate deals, but the BoC still retains the authority to formally approve entering into the contract.

Unless today’s decision delegates that authority to Deaton as well.

The move to the SEC—described earlier this week as “inevitable and imminent”—now seems to be put on hold for at least another week or so. While most college football fans would simply like to see Mizzou either fish or cut bait, moving deliberately makes sense. Staying in the Big 12 is a decision with temporary commitment. Moving to the Southeastern Conference is probably a lifetime deal.

If I’m a betting man, I’m laying odds that the deal gets done and Mizzou becomes SEC No. 14, and makes the move in time to participate in at least part of the 2012-13 seasons.

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Missouri move to SEC said to be “inevitable and imminent”

But... then he's still out there.

Two stories released overnight Monday and early Tuesday indicate that Missouri will likely leave the Big 12 Conference and become the Southeastern Conference’s 14th member.

The first report was published by the New York Times. Pete Thamel cites a source that told him that the decision to seek membership in the SEC was “inevitable and imminent,” but provided no specific timetable for the decisions.

The second report was published by the Kansas City Star. The Star’s Mke DeArmond—whose coverage of this has been the most accurate of any reporter on the story—explains that should Mizzou decide to align itself with the SEC, the process would likely follow the same steps as those taken by Texas A&M. Texas A&M became the SEC’s 13th member in September.

The SEC wants to make sure that Missouri takes all necessary legal steps to properly extricate itself from the Big 12, a process followed by Texas A&M that drew threats of legal action by Baylor University and possibly other members of that conference.

Still at issue is the divisional alignments of two new conference members. The least disruptive alignment would be to place Missouri and Texas A&M in separate divisions, keeping existing SEC East and West members as they are and preserving inter-divisional rivalries like Alabama – Tennessee, Auburn – Georgia and LSU – Florida, while allowing SEC members Florida and Georgia to maintain their regular season finales against ACC foes Florida State and Georgia Tech. There had been discussions of placing both new conference members in the SEC West and allowing Auburn or some other SEC West school to realign with the East. However, the football scheduling problems that plan would cause have resulted in scant support among the league’s traditional powers.

The situation is of course very fluid and what’s true today may not be tomorrow. We we should have a much clearer picture by the end of the week.

Like Jason Voorhees, the Missouri to SEC story is “still out there.”

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Hypocrisy on display by SEC Presidents?

Either the Birmingham News’ Jon Solomon’s sources are misleading him, or the Southeastern Conference Presidents are displaying a sickening degree of hypocrisy by suggesting that the league can “do better” than adding Missouri.

The current Big 12 Missouri Tigers’ Board of Curators voted late Tuesday to authorize Chancellor Brady Deaton to explore conference membership options.

According to the sources cited in Solomon’s column, Missouri enjoys majority support for a bid to join the SEC, but that support falls short of the nine votes needed. My own information differs only slightly from what Solomon was told—that Mizzou would be welcome in the league so long as the 14-team divisional alignment preserves the traditional rivalries of Alabama vs. Auburn, Alabama vs. Tennessee, Auburn vs. Georgia, Georgia vs. Florida, etc. This would mean placing Texas A&M and Missouri (or whoever the potential 14th member is) in separate divisions and leaving the remaining conference members in their respective divisions. This, I am told, is the position of the University of Alabama and others as well. If adding Missouri means pushing Auburn or some other SEC West school into the East division, support in the league falls and not only would it be short of the three-fourth’s majority, getting even a simple majority would be a coin flip.

The conference isn’t putting a Mizzou application to a vote of the Presidents unless somebody has counted the votes and they know it will pass.

But the notion that the league can “do better” than Missouri just reeks with hypocrisy. Currently, the league has only two members of the prestigious Association of American Universities—Florida and Vanderbilt. The addition of Texas A&M brings that to three, and Missouri would make it four. If academics count for something in consideration of conference expansion, how do you do better than adding an AAU member?

Missouri may not be the ideal fit geographically but it is at least acceptable—the state borders three states with existing conference members in Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas. Here’s a map courtesy of Mizzou2SEC.com, a fan website established to promote the addition of the school as the 14th member.

 

Mizzou also makes sense from a media marketing standpoint—adding the potential to penetrate the St. Louis and Kansas City markets and adding another six million people to the potential media demographic.

Could the SEC “do better?” Perhaps, but only by hunting on posted ground and luring a member of an existing BCS automatic qualifying school. But if we restrict the candidates to only AAU members, it’s hard to make the argument that they’d be doing better. From the ACC, candidates would include Duke, Georgia Tech, Maryland and Virginia. From the Big East, candidates would be limited to Rutgers and Pitt. Which of those six schools are comparable in geography, market potential and demographics?

Duke and Virginia.

I’ll let that sink in a moment.

If the SEC Presidents decide to relax the requirement of AAU membership and poach one of the non-AAU members in the ACC or Big East with more football earnings power, aren’t they guilty of the hypocrisy we smell in Solomon’s column?

Exit Question: Do you really believe the SEC is comfortable with 13 members for any length of time?

JASON LIVES: Missouri Board of Curators authorizes conference shopping

Strongest indication yet that Mizzou will become SEC’s 14th team
We told you last month that this story had the staying power of Jason Voorhees.
In another story from the Kansas City Star’s Mike DeArmond (whose coverage of this story has been the most accurate from the start),  The University of Missouri Board of Curators has authorized Chancellor Brady Deaton to explore conference membership opportunities.
Quashing any rumors that the Board was divided over the issue, DeArmond reports that the vote was unanimous. While interim Big 12 Commissioner Chuck Neinas has been preaching unity and telling reporters that Missouri would remain a member of the conference, Mizzou is telling the world that it’s looking out for the interests of the University.

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“The Board of Curators delegates to Chancellor Deaton the authority to take any and all actions necessary to fully explore options for conference affiliation and contracts related thereto which best serve the interests of the University of Missouri-Columbia and the University of Missouri system,” Erdman said

Deaton then announced he had resigned his position as chairman of the Big 12 board of directors to “avoid any perceived or actual conflict of interest” and “in order to focus more fully on MU’s best interests.”

Deaton said he will work with other MU officials “to expeditiously examine what may be the best conference affiliation for our university.”

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At issue is a proposal to have the nine remaining Big 12 schools agree to a deal in which all first- and second-tier media revenues would be committed to the league for equal distribution. This would include all revenues from the league’s television contracts with ABC/ESPN (first tier) and Fox Sports (second tier). Texas’ Longhorn Network is a third tier and would not be included. The deal would last for six years, whether the institutions are members of the Big 12, or not. The deal was contingent upon each remaining Big 12 school to agree to the measure and with yesterday’s vote, Missouri told the Big 12 that they were having none of it.
Multiple independent sources in Birmingham and around the league have told IBCR that Missouri could be accepted by the SEC as early as Friday, but that a more likely case was a decision next week. If Missouri applies, they will be accepted. Missouri has not formally applied for membership, nor has the league offered a formal invitation to the school, but the school and league officials have discussed the move in enough detail to allow the Missouri Board of Curators to “feel good” about last night’s decision.
Jason lives, y’all!
UPDATE: The Birmingham News’ Jon Solomon reports that there were no discussions of scheduling in a 14-team league when SEC Athletic Directors met Wednesday.
"We can't talk about it," Florida Athletics Director Jeremy Foley said after the ADs met for about four hours at the SEC office. "We're talking about A&M."
Said Mississippi State Athletics Director Scott Stricklin: "We didn't talk any 14-team schedules. It was all focused on the 13-team model."
Jason lives, but he’s stalking his next victim, or something.

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The Mizzou to SEC story just won’t die

And we thought Jason Voorhees would never die.

According to a story filed late last night by the Kansas City Star’s Mike DeArmond, Missouri isn’t ready to commit to the Big 12 and still considers a move to the SEC as an option.

At issue is a proposal to have the nine remaining Big 12 schools agree to a deal in which all first- and second-tier media revenues would be committed to the league for equal distribution. This would include all revenues from the league’s television contracts with ABC/ESPN (first tier) and Fox Sports (second tier). Texas’ Longhorn Network is a third tier and would not be included. The deal would last for six years, whether the institutions are members of the Big 12, or not.

That means your TV revenues belong to the conference even after you decide that Texas’ behavior is simply too toxic and you decide to abandon ship for a better conference.

The last two years have been a bloodbath for the Big 12, with Nebraska bolting to the Big 10 and Colorado joining the Pac-12 last year, Texas A&M leaving for the Southeastern Conference for next season, and Commissioner Dan Beebe losing his job over the instability and uncertainty regarding the future of the conference.

Reports of an agreement having been reached yesterday led to many observers believing that the conference realignment carousel had finally stopped spinning and that the Mizzou move to the SEC was dead. Not so fast, says the Voorhesian Tiger program. There are several quotes in DeArmond’s report that should raise some eye brows:

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“We either stick in the Big 12 because everything came about the way it needs to, the right way, with all the differences being settled in Missouri’s favor,” a university administrator who asked not to be identified told The Star on Thursday night. “But what are the odds of that happening?

“The other option is to join another conference and I believe that is something that we’re very open to.”

…

When asked about the SEC, Deaton said that was another hypothetical and he wouldn’t elaborate further.

Asked if the SEC was still in play, the administrator, who contacted The Star, said: “You will not look stupid by insinuating that.”

Asked again if Deaton was prepared to make a statement that Missouri would remain in the Big 12 for the foreseeable future, Deaton said:

“The University of Missouri is going to continue to work for what is best for the University of Missouri.

“We have seen that aligned with the Big 12 Conference.”

The Missouri administrator who asked not to be identified told The Star that Deaton’s statement should be construed as less than an unconditional commitment to the Big 12 at this time.

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A lot of people are taking heat over their reporting in the conference realignment shuffle. It’s a lot like a national coaching search at a top-tier university, where many big-name candidates are in play, each with varying and shifting degrees of interest in the program and vice versa. What is true at the time it’s reported may not be true less than one rotation of the earth later, and things no one had on their radar screens are suddenly on your six and getting a weapons lock.

In this blogger’s opinion, the only two ways this all comes to an end is if the Big 12 completely disintegrates and its former members drift off into new alliances, or Texas comes to its “good of the whole” senses and agrees to share a significant portion of the LHN revenues with the league and agrees to restrictions on how it uses it for recruiting.

Until one of those two things take place, Jason lives.

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What should divisions look like with a 14-team SEC? Easy…

Today, the Kansas City Star cited reliable sources in a report that Missouri had an offer on the table to join the SEC, and that the SEC was willing to wait on the final fate of the Big 12 conference. The boards of regents at Oklahoma and Texas have both voted to explore options, and of course all of this comes in the wake of Texas A&M’s formal secession from the Big 12 and acceptance into the SEC (barring court action blocking the move).

Later reports from USA Today’s Campus Corner had the SEC denying that it had made an offer to Missouri, but the sense is that the “denial” is plausible because, while the SEC probably has a wink-nudge offer to Mizzou, no way is Slive & Co. going to allow themselves to be portrayed as hunting on posted ground.

A&M looks to be all but a done deal and Mizzou might well be the dance partner, bringing the SEC to a 14-program conference with two, seven-member divisions.

The math of having an even number of conference participants makes scheduling a relatively easy thing to do. Scheduling equitably with 13 members is doable, but it wouldn’t be easy and it would leave some division members missing out on one game that they’d probably like to play.

There’s a good deal of chatter on how the two new conference members would fit into the league’s divisional system. Some folks think having two programs from west of the Mississippi all but guarantees that Auburn is pushed into the SEC East and both of the former Big 12 schools join the west. There’s also talk of rearranging some of the programs from the East and West to bring more balance. All of that is much too complicated and would likely end some storied conference rivalries.

A much easier solution (and therefore the one that will likely be the first option rejected) would be to simply rename the two divisions, keep the existing members in place and split the two new programs between the former East and West Divisions. Like this, for example:

Former SEC West	Former SEC East
Alabama	Florida
Arkansas	Georgia
Auburn	Kentucky
LSU	South Carolina
Miss State	Tennessee
Missouri	Texas A&M
Ole Miss	Vanderbilt

In order to maintain the eight-game SEC schedule that requires each team to play each of its divisional opponents, one of the two rotating interdivisional games would have to be dropped, and each member school plays two opponents from the other division, rather than three (a recent schedule tweak following the addition of the 12th regular season game). One of the two interdivisional opponents is designated a divisional rival, while the other rotates on a home-away basis.

Alabama keeps its Iron Bowl rivalry with Auburn and neither team faces the prospect of having to play back-to-back should both be in the SEC Championship Game. Tennessee and Alabama also keep their storied rivalry, as do Auburn and Georgia, Tennessee and Florida, Georgia and Florida, and so on. Texas A&M and Missouri would almost certainly choose one another as their interdivisional rival, and you’re all set for an eight game schedule with 14 teams in the SEC.

Told ya that would be easy. Check, please?

Exit Question: Can Mike Slive avoid the disaster of division names that Jim Delany came up with?

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