I live in Temple Texas. We are about 100 miles from both College Station and Austin. We are 30 miles south of Waco. But this is a Longhorn town. I have followed the jockeying last year regarding the Big Ten , PAC 10 Big 12 Conferences. As an LSU fan I was hoping that the Aggies would become members of the SEC. But that did not happen.

We are in the Waco market here in Temple and I read and listened as doom appeared to be on the horizon for Baylor and the city of which it is located. During that whirl wind last year when many teams changed conferences, the University of Texas was courted by not one, but four different conferences. They realized that the best deal for them was to be a "big fish in a small pond" and with their own network to boot. The "smaller fish" such as Iowa State, Baylor, Texas Tech and Kansas were willing to agree to nearly anything just as long as they could continue to be a member of a BCS AQ conference.
Yes, A&M and Oklahoma did have other options (including the SEC) but "Texas" in their arrogance, threatened to cease their respective rivalries with both schools if they did not fall in line with the Horns.
Now the Big 12 with only ten teams and no championship game, is poised to start the 2011 football campaign. As the same time the "rent" is coming due, and The Longhorn Network is being launched. The Longhorn Network is planning to show many high school football games along with other broadcast of Longhorn sports. The other members of the Big 12 are beginning to realize that the new television network will give a clear and distinct recruiting advantage to the University of Texas. This advantage is becoming to be a bitter pill to swallow.
It does not take a true genius to read the writing on the wall. Some things are simply inevitable. As much as OU, Mizzou, OSU and TAMU objects, ESPN and the University of Texas will indeed prevail and will be able to do exactly as they planned all along. Baylor, Tech, KSU, Kansas and ISU will continue to go along rather than suffer consequences which they consider worse.

So why am I writing about the Big 12 (ten) and their woes?

The SEC should "strike while the iron is still hot". It should extend an offer of membership to The University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, the University of Missouri and Texas A&M. The SEC should be realigned with those four teams joining Ar-Kansas, Old Miss, State and LSU in the SEC West. By doing so, the SEC would have added the Houston, Dallas,San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Kansas City and St Louis television markets. The door will be wide open for recruiting in three "football fertile" states. These four schools, each steeped in rich tradition, excellent academics and national prominence, will enhance our conference. I do not think anyone can argue that the current SEC is by far the most dominant athletic conference. The addition of these four institutions will solidify that fact.
Texas will eventually go independent anyway, and the current Big 12 (ten) is destined to collapse, so why not hasten the process. As far as the other five teams remaining from the Big 12 (ten), I suggest that they join with the existing members of the Mountain West Conference and become "The Conference Catorce" as well as being a BCS AQ conference.