Texas and Texas AM Joining the Southeastern Conference

The super conferences in the BCS are preparing to make a major land grab. Just as the Big 10 announces plans to absorb Syracuse, Pitt, also Rutgers, the Southeastern conference is not sitting still. While the Big 10 hankers after the Atlantic seaboard schools for it's lucrative television market, the Southeastern conference would respond by adding Texas also Texas AM. The Pac 10, meanwhile, will also expand perhaps taking Brigham Young, Colorado, along with the Air Force Academy; but Texas and AM have to be very careful. Their prestigious academic ratings could be hurt by joining the laissez faire Southeastern conference: In Bubba land, scholarly pursuits are a distinct second to winning football games: to quote South Carolina's, Steve Spurrier, "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying." Of course, Auburn, Vanderbilt, and Florida have outstanding academic reputations, the other universities, however, are considered nothing more than football factories. Imagine a Nobel prize winner singing, "Rocky Top," Tennessee's obnoxious fight song. Syracuse basketball coach, Jim Boheim, nevertheless, is already lamenting the possibility New York recruits will be unwilling to play in gyms like Iowa or Ohio State. Which ever way this all plays out, football is the engine driving these defections. So much money can be earned by belonging to a 16 member BCS conference - all the others sports basketball included - will have to take a back seat to football.