re: Vanderbilt was a part of the SEC's "Original Big Four"

I'll let Vandy take Tennessees spot in the big 4. Not that my opinion means shite. I'll never Forget the auburn-vandy game on October 4, 2008. Vandy beat auburn and I got married later that afternoon. People thought I was crying before the "I do's" because I was nervous or having second thoughts but really it was because I had to watch tony franklins high school offense struggle to move the ball on "smart kids". My grandpa hung his head the rest of the night and people thought he didn't agree with the marriage, wrong. He too just couldn't bare to believe what we saw as we got dressed for the wedding. My dad got super drunk and people thought "wow he loves weddings", wrong. He drank himself stupid to forget the game. Photos of me smiling were rare that night. Only standing directly next to my young beautiful wife could I forget the defeat. So sure, after tht loss and coming to grips with it a couple of years later. Vandy has my respect. Also tht was the beginning of the end of tubbs and his good ole boy assistant coaches. So thank you vandy for a wedding day I'll never forget!

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Now we have dancing bananas on an internet blog!

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Since Suwanee was a founding member they could get automatic admission into the SEC...or so I've been told

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THE SIAA (Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association) is in essence the origin of the SEC

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As far as history is concerned, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia and Vanderbilt represent the Big Four.

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(Google it)

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Here is your History lesson.

The SEC was established on December 8 and 9, 1932, when the thirteen members of the Southern Conference located west and south of the Appalachian Mountains left to form their own conference. Ten of the thirteen founding members have remained in the conference since its inception: the University of Alabama, Auburn University, the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, the University of Kentucky, Louisiana State University ("LSU"), the University of Mississippi ("Ole Miss"), Mississippi State University, the University of Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University.

The other charter members were:The University of the South ("Sewanee"),Georgia Institute of Technology ("Georgia Tech",Tulane University left the SEC in 1966.

In essence the SEC did not come from the SIAA. It began as its own conference Members of that conference left when they were unhappy about an agreement and began the SEC. The SIAA continued being a conference.

That is as inaccurate as saying that the Southern Conference founded the ACC.
Seven universities were charter members of the ACC: Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, and Wake Forest. Previously members of the Southern Conference, they left partially due to that league's ban on post-season play. After drafting a set of bylaws for the creation of a new league, the seven withdrew from the Southern Conference at the spring meeting on the morning of May 8, 1953. The bylaws were ratified on June 14, 1953, and the ACC was created. On December 4, 1953, officials convened in Greensboro, North Carolina, and admitted Virginia into the conference.[2]


Also there were not just 7 original schools. The SIAA was founded on December 21, 1894, by Dr. William Dudley, a chemistry professor at Vanderbilt.[1] The original members were Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Sewanee, and Vanderbilt. Clemson, Cumberland, Kentucky, LSU, Mercer, Mississippi, Mississippi A&M (Mississippi State), Southwestern Presbyterian University, Tennessee, Texas, Tulane, and the University of Nashville joined the following year in 1895 as invited charter members.[2] The conference was originally formed for "the development and purification of college athletics throughout the South".[3] They crafted a constitution, created an Executive Committee, elected officers, and set rules for[3]:

HERE IS WHY IT IS SO.
At the conference's annual meeting on December 10, 1920, the SIAA rejected proposals to ban freshman athletes and abolish paid summer baseball.[5] In protest, some schools that had voted in favor of the propositions immediately announced they would seek to form a new conference.[5] On February 25, 1921, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Mississippi State, and Tennessee left the SIAA to form the Southern Conference, along with non-SIAA members Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Washington & Lee.[6] In 1922, the Southern Conference underwent an expansion and added six more members, all at the expense of the SIAA: Florida, Louisiana State, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tulane, and Vanderbilt.[4]

With the departure of most of the major colleges, the SIAA became a de facto small college conference in 1923. In the 1920s and 1930s, the SIAA increased its membership with the addition of many additional small universities. The conference eventually disbanded in 1942 with the onset of American involvement in World War II.[4] League archives were kept at Vanderbilt, the league's founding school, but the building housing the archives was eventually gutted with fire, taking countless irreplaceable items pertaining to the SIAA's history with it.