The newest member of the SEC East?

There were some rumblings in the past week about SEC expansion. Specifically, Texas A&M and Oklahoma are interested in joining the greatest conference in the world, and get away from the Texas 12. A fourteen team SEC would make a strong conference even stronger. However, Oklahoma isn’t coming without Oklahoma State, and a fifteen team conference makes no sense. So we at 3SIB had an interesting debate on who that elusive sixteenth team would be. The top candidates: Clemson, Florida State, USF, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Kansas, and Virginia Tech.

Clemson doesn’t really add anything other than an SEC quality stadium and fan-base. Florida isn’t going to want to lose the in-state recruiting advantage so FSU and USF are out. Louisville and Georgia Tech both make geographic sense, but what do they really add? Kansas-Kentucky would be the premier regular season basketball rivalry in the country, but let’s not kid ourselves, we live in a football world. That leaves Virginia Tech. Not only do the Hokies pack a strong football punch, but for the conference it adds the huge Virginia-DC-Baltimore market into the league. It’s a win-win.

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