I went to Arkansas for scholarship reasons, but grew up in Houston rooting for the Aggies. (Sister went to TAMU). Some people are complaining that the switch to the SEC would be a bad move academically for the Aggies. US news and world report (love or hate them respectively) lists 9 SEC schools in the top 64 public institutions. The current Big 12 represents only 8 of those 64. I figure Baylor and Vandy are a wash in the private sector. So are the academics of the SEC bad enough to be a deal killer?

RazorAg07

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I figure Baylor and Vandy are a wash in the private sector.

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Vandy blows Baylor out of the water, iirc. Florida is good academically though

It's about conference entrance reqs, from what I understand. And yes, the SEC's are lower.

its not necessarily about where some magazine ranks a school.

its about endowments and money

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Vanderbilt University $2.8 billion
University of Florida $1.01 billion
University of Arkansas $939.8 million
University of Kentucky $696.5 million
University of Tennessee $664.6 million
University of Alabama $535.4 million
Louisiana State University $554.7 million
University of South Carolina $531.7 million
University of Georgia $456.1 million
University of Mississippi $369.8 million
Auburn University $339.2 million
Mississippi State University $254.5 million

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there just isnt that much there

The SEC's endowment's are pathetically small and their academics are inferior and not excelling at the pace A&M's is. I want BIG X! They are old schools with rich histories and traditions like us and their endowments and academics are respectable. PAC 10 has great academics but everything else just sucks.

AAU memberships.

Arkansas has only been cashing Wal-Mart checks for the past 20 years. Give us another couple decades and we'll have a few billion stuck back.

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Baylor - $1 billion [11]
Colorado - $870 million [11]
Iowa State - $569 million [11]
Kansas - $1.2 billion [11]
Kansas State - $346 million [11]
Missouri - $1.1 billion [11]
Nebraska - $1.2 billion [11]
Oklahoma - $1.1 billion [11]
Oklahoma State - $617 million [11]
Texas - $12.1 billion [11]
Texas A&M - $5.1 billion [11]
Texas Tech - $792 million [11]

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Jeebus

harrumph

[This message has been edited by Raptor (edited 6/10/2010 6:08p).]

Curses to Texas for getting 2/3 of the PUF. Not that they still wouldn't have a larger endowment, just not that much larger.

So, all things considered, is it an absolute deal breaker? I'd love to see A&M in the SEC.

RazorAg07

regarding the original question: yes

its not a deal breaker, imo, if tu goes to the pac and tamu goes to the sec

if tu goes to the big 10, then it is a deal breaker and we should go with them

a guy that went to arkansas is asking if the sec is really academically inferior...

Personally, I'd like more than a week for my school to make such a large decision.

Honestly, was anybody really talking about this a month ago? Having serious discussions more than a week ago?

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PAC 10 has great academics but everything else just sucks.

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What is everything else? They've pretty much owned the Big 10 in football & have been the consensus 2nd best conference over the last 10-15 years. Men's bball sucked last year, but they've been better than the SEC & pretty close to the Big 10 for most of that time period. The Big 10 is irrelevant in baseball and the Pac 10 is usually a tad better than the SEC year in and year out. As for other sports, Stanford, Cal & USC are fixtures in the Sears Cup top 10, so that speaks for itself.

I don't follow their intramural sports, the Times & Register don't cover them much, so maybe they suck.

apparently, us and the sec have been talking for a couple of months