“We realize if we do this, we have to have the 14th.”

If this Pete Thamel story is correct, SEC expansion is far, far away from being a slam dunk.

And, yeah, I would call this a sticking point:

… The SEC official said he wondered if the SEC presidents would vote for A&M only if they were assured that a team from within one of their states — Florida State, Clemson or Georgia Tech, for example — would not be added.

Not that the speculation feeding frenzy is slowing down any.

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And while we’re on the subject…

One other question about possible SEC expansion:  if Texas A&M does jump conferences, how much do you care about that move opening up the Texas recruiting market to Mark Richt and Georgia?  Considering the number of complaints I’ve seen about the staff not being sufficiently focused on in state recruiting, is that more of a bug than a feature?

You pays your money and you makes your choice: a reader poll

Let’s say for the sake of argument that there’s real fire to all the expansion talk smoke going on (Mandel is excited, because everyone in Montana has heard of Florida State).  Fourteen schools mean seven-team divisions.  Seven-team divisions mean six division games instead of five.

Unless they’re expanding the season to thirteen games, that means the slot for the extra division game has to be taken out of one of two places.  Either cross-division games will be reduced to two, or the number of non-conference games each season drops to three.

I expect that the suits will choose the former option, but I’m more curious what fans would prefer.  So pick your poison.