re: Which Expansion was Less of a Fit: Ark/SCAR, Aggie/Mizzou, or OU/TX?

Oklahoma is mixed. SE Oklahoma is southern in the same way SW Arkansas is southern. It is as much Southwestern as it is Southern. Fort Smith, Arkansas is an Old West town as much as it is a southern town, for example. It's history and culture is tied up in cowboy culture and frontier mentality way more than anything resembling Deep South culture. Cattle-ranching and rodeos, etc.

Arkansas is the same way. Going to SE Arkansas to duck-hunt is like visiting a different state. It is flat, rull of row-crops and mosquitoes, and the remnants of plantation culture and Old Agriculture Money.

The NW Arkansas Ozarks culture is not the same. It doesn't feel the same. People don't talk the same or view the world the same way.

Anyhoo...Deep South Culture identity being tied to the SEC went out the window entirely with the 2012 expansion.

It Doesn't Mean Anything Anymore.