Another conference considering SMU?
Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 9:38 pmAnother possible destination?
SEC latest conference rumored to be considering SMU
The hottest topic of discussion in recent months among college sports fans has been the next wave of conference realignment. Nebraska is in its first season in the Big 10, while Utah and Colorado have begun play as a members of the Pac-12. Texas A&M publicly flirted with the Southeastern Conference until the conference invited the Aggies to join last month, while Pittsburgh and Syracuse appear headed to the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The conference shuffle stems from the desire by schools to lock down spots in the conferences with Automatic Qualifier status when the next wave of realignment is complete — whenever that is. Locally, speculation has been rampant about SMU's future. Do the Mustangs stay in some version of Conference, with the conference perhaps merging with the Mountain West Conference? Perhaps a move to the Big 12? What about rumored interest from the Big East, or even the ACC?
Two people involved in college athletic conference realignment efforts have said that the information in an e-mail acquired by PonyFans.com (a portion of which appears below) is, in fact, true: SMU reportedly has had conversations with the heavyweight of college athletic conferences, the SEC.
The two sources spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The president of an SEC university (which was not identified), they said, initiated contact with someone familiar with SMU's realignment effort, and the conversations did center around the possibility of SMU as a target institution for further SEC expansion.
Part of the attractiveness of SMU, the sources said, stemmed from the fact that as a private university with lofty academic standards, SMU could become "the Vandy (Vanderbilt) of the West Division" of the SEC. Considerable attention also was paid to the conference's desire to have a presence in the Dallas/Fort Worth market and the value of tapping into the Dallas area's base of potential corporate sponsors.
The sources declined to characterize the intensity of the conversations and did not divulge whether the talks got as far as beginning construction of a plan to add SMU or if they were merely exploratory conversations.
It is unknown if further conversations have been scheduled.
SEC latest conference rumored to be considering SMU
The hottest topic of discussion in recent months among college sports fans has been the next wave of conference realignment. Nebraska is in its first season in the Big 10, while Utah and Colorado have begun play as a members of the Pac-12. Texas A&M publicly flirted with the Southeastern Conference until the conference invited the Aggies to join last month, while Pittsburgh and Syracuse appear headed to the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The conference shuffle stems from the desire by schools to lock down spots in the conferences with Automatic Qualifier status when the next wave of realignment is complete — whenever that is. Locally, speculation has been rampant about SMU's future. Do the Mustangs stay in some version of Conference, with the conference perhaps merging with the Mountain West Conference? Perhaps a move to the Big 12? What about rumored interest from the Big East, or even the ACC?
Two people involved in college athletic conference realignment efforts have said that the information in an e-mail acquired by PonyFans.com (a portion of which appears below) is, in fact, true: SMU reportedly has had conversations with the heavyweight of college athletic conferences, the SEC.
The two sources spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The president of an SEC university (which was not identified), they said, initiated contact with someone familiar with SMU's realignment effort, and the conversations did center around the possibility of SMU as a target institution for further SEC expansion.
Part of the attractiveness of SMU, the sources said, stemmed from the fact that as a private university with lofty academic standards, SMU could become "the Vandy (Vanderbilt) of the West Division" of the SEC. Considerable attention also was paid to the conference's desire to have a presence in the Dallas/Fort Worth market and the value of tapping into the Dallas area's base of potential corporate sponsors.
The sources declined to characterize the intensity of the conversations and did not divulge whether the talks got as far as beginning construction of a plan to add SMU or if they were merely exploratory conversations.
It is unknown if further conversations have been scheduled.
