SEC Expansion: How it happened in 1990

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On May 31, 1990, the SEC presidents voted to authorize expansion, identifying six schools as potential members: Texas, Texas A&M, Florida State, Miami, South Carolina and Arkansas. Ole Miss President Gerald Turner headed the conference’s expansion committee. He told the Washington Post that the CFA’s inevitable decline meant the SEC would negotiate its own television contracts in the future and that the “first step in that direction is minimizing the force of competing conferences in our geographic area.” In other words, the SEC wanted to keep the Atlantic Coast Conference and a potential Big East football conference out of the State of Florida.

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Yet the time was ripe to strike the SWC, which then consisted of seven Texas schools and Arkansas. The SWC’s small footprint meant it wasn’t a terribly lucrative conference. Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles said his school would make $1 million more a year by switching to the SEC...Arkansas was also eager to swap the low-level competition in the SWC — e.g., Rice and Baylor — for stronger SEC foes like Georgia and Tennessee. When the SEC formally approached Arkansas, there was no hesitation: On August 1, 1990, the school’s trustees unanimously voted to join the SEC, effectively the following July.

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The magic 12th school would not come from the State of Texas. Although Texas and Texas A&M were on the SEC’s original expansion wish list, politics made either a non-starter.

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That left Florida State, Miami and South Carolina vying for the second invitation. Florida State was clearly the SEC’s first choice. The major roadblock was scheduling. On August 3, Bobby Bowden admitted to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “I like to win games, and I can’t think of a tougher place to do that than the SEC.” Under the proposed division alignment, Florida State would face Florida, Auburn and Alabama every year, which raised objections from FSU Athletic Director Bob Goin. “Most conferences have got two really strong programs,” Bowden continued, “but top to bottom there isn’t one close to the SEC.”

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Four days after spurning Florida State, Kramer met with Miami, one of the two remaining expansion candidates. South Carolina’s trustees had preemptively voted to accept an SEC invitation should one come. Miami was decidedly less enthused. Unlike the mostly public universities in the SEC, Miami was a private school that drew its student body in large numbers from the same geographic area as the Big East. Miami officials were also more interested in using Big East membership to improve its fledgling basketball program.

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South Carolina was the last school standing. Kramer met with officials in Columbia on September 20, and on September 25, the Gamecocks received their official invitation.

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