re: For the first time in decades the SEC may be surpassed as the nation's top conference

None of us really knows what the conferences are doing, we're just spitballing.

I don't think anyone thought the Big 10 would raid the Pac 12. Those 2 conferences were always allied (gave you a 2 vote presence at all times with the Power 5), they had a century worth of history together, there's no overlap in geography, etc. For the Big 10 to blow it up, that suggests there's something way deeper than what we've been speculating on.