When Did Mizzou Join The Sec

The University of Missouri has indicated that while the Tigers might end up in the Southeastern Conference by default, that league is not the school’s first choice. Speaking from the heart of SEC country, let me take this opportunity to say the feeling is mutual.

Missouri is neither in the South nor the East. It has no natural rival within the conference other than maybe Arkansas, who will never rank Missouri higher than third on its most-hated list no matter what.

The problems with Missouri go deeper. Adding Missouri as the SEC’s 14th team means shifting someone (likely Auburn) to the Eastern Division, which would mean the end of annual rivalry games like Auburn vs. LSU and Alabama vs. Tennessee.

Adding a team—any team—from the geographic East avoids these problems. Adding Missouri as the league’s Western outpost makes them unavoidable.

But the biggest strike against Missouri is not its remote geography as much as its culture.

I used to live in St. Louis. It is a great sports town, so long as the sports we are talking about are baseball and hockey. St. Louis is also unmistakably a professional sports city.

I remember driving around St. Louis running errands on fall Saturdays and being frustrated that the local sports radio stations aired shows like “Golf Talk” on Saturday afternoons rather than football scoreboard shows. College sports are just a blip on the radar in much of Missouri.

While the Missouri Tigers have a devoted fan base full of good people, there are a large number of sports fans in the state who don’t follow college sports. And even the ones who do follow Missouri sports don’t follow them with the same unhealthy breathless fervor that exists among those from SEC territory.

The fact is, the average Missouri fan does not plan their life around Missouri Tiger athletics. While this sane and rational position is no doubt good news for their emotional well-being, it separates them from the other 13 SEC programs, for whom sanity is the enemy of passion.

I’m not the first to suggest that Missouri does not belong in the SEC. The counter-argument to that thought usually says to forget about culture and look at the eyeballs the SEC could bring with Missouri on board.

Just because the state of Missouri has a large population does not mean that a large number of people there passionately follow Missouri Tigers athletics. Missouri football ranks fourth among priorities in St. Louis, falling behind the lowly Rams, much less the beloved Cardinals and Blues. In Kansas City, the Chiefs, Royals and more proximate Kansas Jayhawks take priority.

There may be a large number of television sets in the State of Missouri, but there aren’t that many people watching the Missouri Tigers. Whoever is telling SEC Commissioner Mike Slive that Missouri brings with it a large television audience has not done their homework.

The more fundamental problem with Missouri’s population-based argument is that that kind of thinking goes against what made the SEC great to begin with. The Iron Bowl does not draw huge ratings because Alabama has large media markets. LSU doesn’t draw huge ratings numbers because of Louisiana’s one top-50 media market.

The SEC is not the nation’s most watched conference because of the television markets within its footprint. People watch SEC games because of the quality of its teams and the passion of its fans.

To bring a slightly above-average football program with a casually passionate fan base would dilute what makes the conference great.

No matter how many television dollars the school would supposedly bring, Missouri has no business playing in the SEC.

Raiding the ACC for a team like Florida State, Clemson or Virginia Tech would enhance both the league’s on-field product and its culture. If the ACC has locked its borders, West Virginia, with its passionate fan base and greater history of sustained success, would be a great addition without bringing the geographic negatives that Missouri does.

Make no mistake, if the SEC is left with Missouri as its best option, the league would still survive and even thrive.

Division championships

The Tigers were previously members of the Big 12 North division between its inception in 1996 and the dissolution of conference divisions within the Big 12 in 2011. The Tigers joined the SEC as members of the SEC East starting in 2012. Missouri has won five division championships.

While the Missouri Tigers have a devoted fan base full of good people, there are a large number of sports fans in the state who don’t follow college sports. And even the ones who do follow Missouri sports don’t follow them with the same unhealthy breathless fervor that exists among those from SEC territory.

No matter how many television dollars the school would supposedly bring, Missouri has no business playing in the SEC.

But the biggest strike against Missouri is not its remote geography as much as its culture.

I’m not the first to suggest that Missouri does not belong in the SEC. The counter-argument to that thought usually says to forget about culture and look at the eyeballs the SEC could bring with Missouri on board.

Just because the state of Missouri has a large population does not mean that a large number of people there passionately follow Missouri Tigers athletics. Missouri football ranks fourth among priorities in St. Louis, falling behind the lowly Rams, much less the beloved Cardinals and Blues. In Kansas City, the Chiefs, Royals and more proximate Kansas Jayhawks take priority.

Saturday, 10 years to the day after it joined its new league, Missouri will once again take the field against Georgia. This matchup won’t draw quite as much hype, at least from Tiger fans. Missouri is a 39.5-point underdog against the No. 1 Bulldogs, the largest spread in favor of a Tiger opponent since joining the SEC.

“As much as I want to say we have a $200 million budget, we don’t,” Alden said. “We have a $110 million budget.”

The Tigers would lose to Auburn in the league title game, but they would defend their division title in 2014. Across Missouri’s first three years in the SEC, only Alabama and Georgia won more football games. The success wasn’t limited to the gridiron, either. Missouri softball went 15-8 in its first SEC season and advanced to the conference championship game before falling to Florida. Men’s basketball went 11-7 in league play during its debut season and secured an NCAA Tournament bid. The volleyball team pulled off an improbable 35-0 regular season in 2013, winning Missouri’s first SEC championship in any sport.

Yet Alden believes the fact that the Longhorns and Sooners are leaving Missouri’s former conference for its current one underscores why joining the SEC 10 years ago was the right decision.

“To know that we were in a solid neighborhood, that we were in good shape, that we were in the best neighborhood in an entire country and we didn’t have to worry about what the heck was going to happen to the homes in our neighborhood, that was great,” Alden said.

The larger schools reorganized as the Southern Conference at a meeting in Gainesville Dec. 12-13, 1920. Professor S.V. Sanford of Georgia called the meeting and served as the first president. Charter members of the Southern Conference included: Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi State, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Tennessee, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Washington & Lee.

SEC schools began athletic competition with one another more than 100 years ago as members of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Seven institutions (Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Sewanee and Vanderbilt) attended the SIAA organizational meeting of faculty representatives, called by Dr. William L. Dudley of Vanderbilt, in Atlanta Dec. 22, 1894.

The 13 members west and south of the Appalachian Mountains reorganized as the Southeastern Conference at the annual SC meeting of Dec. 8-9, 1932, in Knoxville. The 10 coast members remained in the Southern Conference. Dr. Frank L. McVey of Kentucky was elected president of the new conference whose charter members were: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Sewanee, Tennessee, Tulane and Vanderbilt. (Sewanee withdrew Dec. 13, 1940, Georgia Tech on June 1, 1964 and Tulane on June 1, 1966). McVey held an informal meeting of the school presidents in Birmingham Feb. 16, 1933, then the first full meeting in Atlanta Feb. 27.

The first football game in the Southeast was played April 9, 1880, on the ground now called Old Stoll Field at the University of Kentucky. Kentucky A&M (now UK) organized a team and in November 1881, played Transylvania College in a three-game series. By 1895, 11 current SEC members were playing football.

The first SEC champions were crowned in 1933 in baseball, basketball, football and outdoor track. The leagues inaugural championship event was a basketball tournament in Atlanta, Feb. 24-28, 1933. Records show the first mens team title for cross country was awarded in 1935, while golf and swimming were added in 1937. The league later began hosting championships in tennis (1938) and indoor track (1957).

FAQ

What year did Mizzou go to the SEC?

Prior to joining the SEC in 2012, Missouri was a charter member of the Big 12 Conference, which was created with the merger of the former Big Eight Conference and four schools from the former Southwest Conference (one of these schools, Texas A&M, joined the SEC with Missouri in 2012), and which began athletic …

When did Missouri leave the Big 12?

In 2012 Missouri and Texas A&M left the conference to join the Southeastern Conference and were replaced by West Virginia and Texas Christian. Despite the reduction in conference membership to 10 schools, the Big 12 decided to keep its well-known name.

Why did Missouri join SEC?

The question now is whether SEC teams will now play nine conference games instead of eight. While putting Missouri in the SEC East had a lot to do with preserving current rivalries, it also makes them the best candidate to move to the SEC West if the conference ever goes to 16 teams in the future.

Is Mizzou an SEC school?

On November 6, 2011, the SEC commissioner announced that the University of Missouri would also join the SEC on July 1, 2012. For football, Texas A&M was scheduled to compete in the Western Division, and Missouri in the Eastern Division. Texas A&M and Missouri both left the Big 12 Conference.

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