Missouri, Come on Down?

I wasn't going to write anything about Missouri's move to the SEC until it became official. Now that it is official, I have to say that I'm not at all enthusiastic about it. As far as I can tell, the SEC's thought process worked like this:

1. Wow, we have a chance to grab Texas A & M! That would really strengthen the SEC. Let's do it!

2. OK, we have A & M. That's exciting. Now we're a 13-team league.

3. Oh, wait, if we have 13 teams, how can we have two equal divisions for football?

4. We need another football team.

5. None of the following schools is willing to join the SEC: Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Duke, or Virginia Tech. Here's what's left: East Carolina, West Virginia, Central Florida, South Florida, Louisville, Memphis, and Missouri.

6. Oooooooooookay, then. Now what do we do?

7. Missouri it is!

So here we are. Just as we took South Carolina to balance out Arkansas (after FSU turned us down), now we are taking Missouri to balance the addition of A & M. In fact, the SEC will have to put Missouri in the East in order to avoid messing up a number of traditional rivalries. This makes no sense geographically, of course -- but, for that matter, the whole notion of letting Missouri into the SEC makes no sense geographically.

Fortunately, I believe that most SEC fans will simply be able to ignore Missouri most of the time. They'll beat UK and Vandy almost every year, of course, but I would expect them to be a middle-of-the-pack school in football, much like Arkansas or South Carolina. Most weekends, we can simply forget about them.

Having said that, I am really worried that Missouri's Midwestern earnestness will make for a very awkward fit with the rest of the SEC, and that they and their fans will constantly be quoted on ESPN and in other media outlets complaining about how corrupt and terrible the rest of us are. The Kansas City media -- which is dominated by Kansas fans -- is furious over Missouri's shift to the SEC, and I am not looking forward to all of their whiny stories about how awful things are in the South. I also know that Missouri really wanted to be in the Big 10, and I'm very worried that we haven't heard the last of that, either. I don't think these conference movements are done, and I will be furious if we have to deal with a bunch of "Missouri to the Big 10?" stories down the road.

I'm also worried that Missouri will be annoyingly good in basketball, and that they will be a headache for Kentucky fans in that regard. Historically, Missouri's basketball program has been very much like that of Tennessee -- its only real purpose was to beat Kansas, and you could usually count on it to flame out quickly in the NCAA's. Now they'll focus on beating us, but they'll still flame out in the NCAA's. That will be incredibly tiresome.

So I'm not a big fan of this move. In fact, while I was excited about adding A & M, in retrospect I don't think I would have been willing to admit Missouri just to get A & M. But I plan to ignore Missouri as much as possible, and hope for the best.