Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Why Missouri? One columnist shows why

With Missouri's leaders voting Tuesday night to toss a shovel's load of dirt on the Big 12, Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitutions looks at the reasons why adding another set of Tigers to the SEC could stand the test of time.

Show me? Punch here.

MG

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

He makes very good points. On the academics, I've never understood this notion that the SEC is made up of Florida, Vandy and 10 junior college-calliber schools. 'Bama, Auburn and UGA are not rotten universities. The SEC certainly isn't any worse than the Pac-8-10-12-whatever...

Anonymous said...

SEC not worse academically than the PAC-12? You're joking right? The PAC-12 is the best academic BCS conference in America. Let's compare: Vandy is a higher ranked private school but nowwhere in the neighborhood of Stanford. Vandy may belong in the same private category as USC, but that would be at best. Florida, the best among the publics, is at best on par with Colorado or Oregon in academics and solidly behind Univ of Washington and way, way behind UCLA and UC Berkeley. The rest? Well, there may be some overlap with Georgia and Arizona, etc., but just overlap and no clear advantage.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous at 6:45PM is right. And adding Mizzou to the SEC would immediatley make them the best academic public university in the conference, just ahead of Florida.

Anonymous said...

All true. SEC is more like Big XII academically. Vanderbilt = Texas, Florida = Missouri and the rest are jokes.

Anonymous said...

Stanford couldn't hold Vandys academic jock strap, but they would like to!

Anonymous said...

The only university that is better than Stanford academically is Harvard. Maybe you meant Samford in Alabama?

Bud said...

I have a comment for Anony at 11:56 pm on 10/5. It's one thing to say that certain colleges are rated higher than others academically by some rating organizations. But to say that the SEC schools except for Vandy and Florida are jokes academically is not only untrue, it's an ignorant thing to say.

EatEmAndSmile said...

Missouri is to the SEC what Pitt, Syracuse and Boston College are to the ACC, which are square pegs in round holes.

Please Mike Slive, do not dilute the best football conference in the nation by adding a school that considers the SEC their consolation prize.

1) Missouri is a mid-western state. With all due respects to southern Missouri, this state is not Southern.

2) The passion for UM football in Missouri is not anywhere close to being on par with the the rest of the SEC schools (except Vandy). The TV sets we are suppose to be getting with this move are more tuned in to their pro teams. KC is a Chiefs town and St Louis only cares about the Cardinals and Rams

3) Adding Missouri really jacks up the divisions and threatens long standing rivalries. The SEC would be better to add a team located in the southeast.

Woo Pig Sooie

Anonymous said...

As a Mizzou grad, I can tell you there is an unspoken rivalry with Arkansas...there's a lot of bad blood that goes way back to the 60's, which is why they have not played football against each other in a long time. Personally, I think they will struggle in the SEC, and people in St. Louis and Kansas City will really not care any more than they do now about Mizzou football or basketball.

Anonymous said...

Same can be said about Northeast College football vs. Pro ball. You can almost see the Empire State Building for Rutgers U., but they can hardly fill a 40,000 seat stadium. And the academias are constantly fighting the sports teams about any money spent on sports. Same with Philly schools completing with Pro Teams.

The North East area has not decided if they want to join the rest of the world. They are caught in a quandary they cannot get out of between athletics & academia. Thus they are doomed to play second fiddle in both as an “Ivey league Lite” and “Sports Lite”. OK at both, but great at neither.

Michael said...

PAC-12 has some great schools. But let's be honest here. The academic rankings are, for the most part, virtually meaningless when it comes to whom is admitted to play football or basketball. Lane Kiffin, Chip Kelly and Rick Neuheisel must spend hours sifting through SAT Scores on airplanes.