re: Elephant in the room... Mizou

quote:

---

It pains me to make this thread but it needs to be said

---

quote:

---

Mizzou makes no god damn sense in the SEC (culturally)

---

I don't see why it pains you seeing as how people have been making basically this very thread for ten years now.

I propose a 3-league trade deal:

1. The SEC give Missouri to the Big 10
They have natural rivalries with both Nebraska and Illinois. There are rumors that Kansas could go to the Big 10 eventually to, so if that happens, Mizzou needs to be in the Big 10.

2. The Big 10 give Maryland back to the ACC
Maryland in the Big 10 makes less sense than Mizzou in the SEC. They belong in the ACC, and sending them back would make room for Mizzou.

3. The ACC give Georgia Tech back to the SEC
Of course they have a rivalry with Georgia, but they also had a very long rivalry with Auburn and played in the SEC up through 1963. I'm tired of Tech counting as a Power 5 OOC opponent for us.... I'd just soon let that game count as a conference game.

Texas and Oklahoma would join the new SEC West.... Auburn moves into the East and Mizzou in the East is replaced by Georgia Tech. This makes a whole lot more sense, IMO.

quote:

---

South of Cape Girardeau and especially the boot heel I have no issues with them saying that.

Mason Dixon line cuts Missouri in half after all.

---

To put this in perspective:

Caruthersville, MO (the southeastern most town in the state) is just 178 miles to Oxford, MS and just 196 miles to Nashville.

But Caruthersville to Kansas City is 429 miles, nearly triple the distance to Oxford.

So when y'all say "Missouri is not a cultural fit", it's a confusing sentiment because Missouri is not a cultural fit within itself.

quote:

---

I've had people from Missouri tell me they were from the south

---

I feel the same way about people in Kentucky now that I live here.

quote:

---

Always has been about television market

---

I don't think the SEC really took Mizzou for television markets. I think it was for two much more long-term, strategic reasons:

1. Mizzou solidifies the conference's western and northern border and insulated it from rival conferences' expansion. Particularly, from Big Ten expansion while ensuring that a Big 12-PAC-12 merger would never become a meaningful rival on the SEC's western border. I know that the SEC moreso than any other conference respects tradition, but the fact is that conference expansion has been escalating since the SEC added USCe and Arkansas in 1992. It's been expand or die since at least that time, and ironically, the traditional South has always been ahead of the curve there.

2. Mizzou has a ton of potential. True, Mizzou has never consistently lived up to its potential, but it's still there nonetheless. While y'all like to shite on Mizzou, it is the only FBS program in a state of six million people and has no true rivals in a geographic range of over 500 miles. It's an AAU institution with a big, fat research budget and an enormous sway over state politics. It's one of the larger land-grant schools by almost any metric: endowment, budget, enrollment, undergraduate programs, or graduate programs. I think the folks in the SEC office recognized that with enough time being exposed to SEC football-crazed fanbases and money to build up the program, we will eventually become a worthy peer to further cement the conference's northwest borders.

And I hate to tell the detractors, but it's starting to happen after our fair share of growing pains. We're spending more money on our athletic program than at any point in history. We've poured $300+ million in our facilities in the past seven years. We have the best football recruiting class we've ever had BY FAR coming in next season. Now we just need to build consistent results and fan support. But it will come. Meanwhile, the flagship schools to our north and west are floundering without a good home: to the west, nothing needs to be said about the sad state of KU football, Nebraska has floundered in the B1G and has lost all of its recruiting pipelines, and Oklahoma State, Iowa State, and Kansas State are stuck in the remnants of the Big 12, playing afterthought urban commuter schools.

It’s the land of meth heads, fat people, bland chili, and shitty barbecue. So, so sociologically you’re batting .500

quote:

---

Go to tell someone from Cape Girardeau, Sikeston, or Poplar Bluff that they aren't from the South. Those are fightin' words down there.

---

One of these is not like the others. Hint: CG.