Now that Missouri has officially become the 14th member of the SEC, one of the main questions of whether or not the conference would move to a nine-game schedule has been answered.
Despite statements by South Carolina president Harris Pastides that the SEC would move to a nine-game conference schedule as soon as Missouri joins the conference, the SEC’s office has tweeted to the contrary. The Tigers and SEC commissioner Mike Slive made it known they plan for that entry to be July 1, 2012, but admitted there were details that needed to be ironed out with the Big 12 for that to happen.
Pastides said that if the SEC moved to a nine-game slate, the conference would have reimburses each team who had to break their contract with a non-con opponent if it resulted in a financial loss. Given the competitive nature of the SEC, a move to nine conference games would have been a surprising one.