A&M addresses SEC decision to stand down on expansion

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, the SEC announced earlier Sunday that "[n]o action was taken with respect to any institution including Texas A&M” and that the conference is not interested -- for now -- in expanding beyond its current 12 members.

It was expected that A&M would issue a statement at some point Sunday addressing the latest development in what’s been a 14-months-long soap opera. Obviously, the school has done that, with A&M president R. Bowen Loftin indicating that an evaluation of their current conference affiliation is not dead and meetings scheduled over the next two days -- one involving the school’s Board of Regents Monday, one in front of the Texas House of representatives the following day -- will go on as planned.

“As we have seen over the past several days, there has been a considerable amount of misinformation regarding these discussions and any associated timelines. The chairman of our board has indicated that the regents will proceed with tomorrow’s agenda item, which authorizes the president of Texas A&M to take all actions related to athletic conference alignment. I will also accept Chairman Branch’s invitation to participate in his committee’s hearing on Tuesday. These are extremely complex issues, and it is imperative that we proceed methodically and in the best interests of Texas A&M.”

While some have written that a future Aggies move to the SEC is DOA based on the conference’s statement this afternoon, that’s apparently far from the case.

The wheels of expansion are seemingly moving slowly -- slower than the Internet would like -- thanks in large part to a combination of legal concerns as well as identifying a 14th school, but all signs still point to what’s been assumed for the past week. A&M will be out of the Big 12 and in the SEC at some point in the future. How near or far away that future is could very well be decided at some point before the start of the 2011 regular season. Or it won’t. One of the two.