Even With A&M And Mizzou, SEC Is Still A “Regional” League

Simply put, when you think of 'The South', Missouri doesn't come up for most/many. I don't think Missouri is a Southern state, as most Southerners agree. However, that's cool that they're in our conference and I hope y'all enjoy a nice butt kicking ;)

One quick note: Contrary to popular belief,  " Dead Skunk In The Middle Of The Road" is not the Missouri fight song.

A  "linked" history will not be the current problem with Missouri. Read the St. Louis Post Dispatch sports page , and you will find the majority of the coverage of collegiate sports is dedicated to Illinois schools. Makes sense, because a growing portion of the "metro" area is now located in Illinois. A large portion of the athletes graduating from St. Louis do not even visit the Missouri campus. They never have !  Kansas City is the same situation.  A large part of the population lives in Kansas. Kansas City athletes often end up at Kansas or Nebraska. Missouri doesn't  "control" the TV market in either of these two cities.  The Mizzou fans don't travel overly well. In football, men's basketball, and, from time to time, a few other sports. Missouri can be moderately good at a national level. Most of the time, however, their other sports are fairly mediocre. Adding Missouri just adds to the losses generated in non-revenue sports. The University doesn't care about it's student athletes, or whether their school and fans have a cultural link to the other SEC schools. They have pipe dream that THEY will make millions and millions of dollars, from TV. I guess they'd rather lose to Kentucky, than Kansas, in basketball. In football, apparently losing to Florida, Georgia and the monsters of the SEC West, is preferable to being smacked by Texas,OU, etc, in the Big 12. 

Well, I grew up in St. Louis county and grew up knowing that Missouri was a Southern state due to my family's history of service in Missouri's Confederate ranks during the war. Missouri DID secede and the Missouri Brigade, recruited from all over the state, has been cited by many historians as the best Confederate brigade in any theatre of the war,. It saw action all through the war from Wilson's Creek to Blakely Alabama, fighting at Shiloh, Corinth, Vicksburg Campaign, Atlanta Campaign, Franklin, all through the western campaigns where it always carried the field. At Franklin Tennessee it lost some 63% of its men in its valiant charge against the Union breastworks, being led into battle by its brass band playing Dixie. At Blakely, in the defense of Mobile Alabama, the day after Lee surrendered at Appomatox, the brigade's thinned band of Missouri brethren was ultimately destroyed in final battle standing firm against an avalanche of Union brigades. Yes, I think Missouri is a grand fit for the SEC and I am very, very, happy to see Missouri joining her sister Southern states for future great games of football.

I was born in North Carolina, grew up in Kansas City and graduated from Mizzou. I always thought of Missouri as Midwestern. Currently I live in Houston, TX. I am so excited to travel to SEC destinations and compete against the great competition. You will feel right at home in Missouri. These are some of the kindest people in America. They will show u what hospitality is. I'm not sure on game day you will find it as inviting as at Texas AM, as they have very gratious fans. I think u will see that we have some great football fans. We grew up watching people like Derrick Thomas slaughter QB's for the Chiefs. Guys like Dale Carter shut down receivers on the corners. We had Bo Jackson in baseball. We know what great SEC athletes look like. LSU in recent years is our Chiefs farm team, just look at the roster. We already have special relationships with the SEC teams, a great respect. That being said, MU is coming on strong. We are improving in football and Basketball. We as fans have high football IQ and a passion for the game. I never wanted us in the big 10 and have never met a Mizzou fan that did. If you don't think there is passion for Ol Mizzou just wait till game day! I think the spread offense that we bring will create some interesting contest in the SEC. It will be cool to see if SEC adopts our spread or if we lean toward SEC prostyle offenses. I also think that recruiting will improve with or without Texas. What is the SEC perception. Do you think there are a lot of recruits to go around? I think coach Pinkel does. To steal a line from Slive, MU created homecoming and thanks for the welcome to our new home, THE SEC.

Graduate of Missouri State here, current Mizzou grad student. Trust me when I tell you "Springvegas" and Branson are definitely as "South" as Kentucky or Arkansas, even Tennessee... We have the Bass Pro HQ in Springfield, the Dixie Stampede in Branson. The Southwest areas of Missouri, really the Ozark area, is definitely a tinge Southern. They may not be the likes of the Bayou—we aren't out hunting alligators in the swamps (kidding, kidding)—but you are sadly mistaken if you think the Ozarks or the Bootheel don't qualify for "Upper-Southern" in the grand scheme of U.S. territorial culture. To be frank, even my home county—Jefferson County just south of St. Louis—is likely "southern" in most respects if you were to ever visit it. Missouri has a strong high school culture in football too, which SEC faithful should covet. We may not be the ripe areas of Georgia or Florida in recruiting or tradition, but Missouri high school football has produces the likes of Jeremy Maclin, Blaine Gabbert, Sheldon Richardson, and the latest top national recruit: Dorial Green-Beckham (from Springfield, MO!). There are more cultural ties to football and fandom of sports in Missouri than isolated SEC naysayers want to believe.

As a Mizzou student, I also hear a lot of talk of trading in the hoodies next year for something a little more classy at home games...

I grew up in Columbia, MO, and also lived in South Carolina (now in Maryland). Missouri is a mix of Midwest and Southern, depending on what part of the state you live in. They used to play "Dixie" at the football games until the late 60's. Had a confederate memorial rock on campus until the early seventies (was moved to the courthouse--not sure if it is still there). The county (Boone) where Columbia is located was confederate during the Civil War, the county to the south of it was union, and the county to the east of it (Callaway) seceded from the union and the confederacy, and never officially rejoined--they still call themselves the "Kingdom of Callaway".

How did it change when Arkansas joined? That makes no sense. Everyone knows Arkansas as southern. Show me one person other then yourself that doesn't? Arkansas has long rivalries agaisnt Ole Miss and LSU. They played a lot of sec schools in bowl games. Oh, and here is the one you love to use. What SEC school borders 5 sec states? Oh yeah, that would be Arkansas. Louisiana-LSU, Mississippi-Ole miss, MSU, Texas-Texas A&M, Tennessee-UT and Vandy, and now Missouri. So everyone commented before on you trying to use Arkansas as not a cultural fit. Again, your propoganda goes on.

I live in southwest missouri and am stoked about being a part of the best collegiate conference. My son is a Mizzou graduate who is a university professor in florida. He is just as stoked as I am. We look forward to traveling to eastern conference cities. Thanks for the welcome. This will, longterm, turn out to be great for MIZZOU and great also for the SEC....GO SEC!!

Look up Gen. Joe Shelby. He lead the Missouri iron brigade. The ones who never surrendered. They went to Mexico instead. The made a movie about it called Undefeated.

I AM from the Ozarks Webster county. and I doubt that whoever " ozark" is actually is . This isn't the deep south but its southern. If your from here and you go up north they will let you know it.
Look up the words to the Missouri waltz. Then look up the original words. Read Mark Twain! He was from north east Missouri even. Harry Truman's mom refused to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. There is a dad gum Dixie outfitter store on the strip in Branson. Watch outlaw Josey Whales.
The civil war started between Missouri and Kansas. Years before fort Sumter.
Ya'll act like Ohio just joined the SEC. Come on man . Atleast acknowledge we r as southern as Kentucky.

I live in Kansas City Missouri and I for one am stoked to be in SEC. MU is a great school (would be 4th oldest school in SEC I believe) and has the 4th highest enrollment. Non revenue sports are strong and in FB admittedly they sucked in 80s and 90s due to horrible coaching hires and underfunding of AD among other things. 2 of the most memorable games ever for MU was in late 60s and then in 70s against Bear Bryant. MU has been considered as a sleeping giant for a long time because they could never get their act together in FB, now they are back on track and should compete well in SEC and in BB they've had alot of tradition but have never made it to Final 4 despite being in elite 8 four or five times. Every MU fan I know in the KC area is excited about the move.

I am from the Missouri Ozarks, and I never thought of myself as Southern. Most Missourians think of themselves as midwesterners. I personally believe that Mizzou's marriage with the SEC is a bad match culturally. There appear to be many factors that contributed to their decision: BIG XII instability and the continuing threat of inevitable collapsed that is buttressed only by Texas and Oklahoma, money, the six-year TV-rights lock that the BIG XII is considering (basically chaining all members to the conference), the fact that MIZZOU's dean is from Kentucky and was a professor at the University of Tennessee, and the strong football reputation in the SEC. There are people in Missouri who have an affinity towards the south, and the Bootheel of Missouri is undoubtable Southern in every way (the fact that the Bootheel is distinctly different than the rest of Missouri is telling in itself), but we are cuturally and geographically closer to the Big XII and Big Ten.

WHAT I'M NOT GETTING HERE IS WHAT THE TERM "SOUTHERN CULTURE" REALLY MEANS IS THIS CODE FOR BEING RACIST? BECAUSE IN 2011 WHAT DOES THE CIVIL WAR HAVE TO DO WITH COLLEGE SPORTS? GET OVER IT MISSOURI AND TEXAS A&M ARE IN SHOW THEM SOME SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY AND WELCOME THEM IN!

You can't use the civil war as a measuring stick for the SEC. There were a lot of men from Maryland that fought for the confederacy, but Maryland isn't SEC territory.

Interesting to note that only universities from states represented on the Confederate battle flag are members of the SEC (Texas A&M and Missouri included). Also, culturally, Missouri loves auto sports and has produced some excellent NASCAR drivers, including MIZZOU graduate Carl Edwards (current points leader), Jamie McMurray, Ken Shrader, Michael Wallace, Kenny Wallace and Winston Cup champion Rusty Wallace.

I just wanted to say I am a Mizzou fan who lives in Nashville...I grew up in south east Missouri 20 minutes away from Paducah KY.,.. I am sooo excited that my team is port of the SEC now and hope folks in the SEC will welcome us. I know the debate whether Mizzou is Southern or not will go on for awhile but you all will see the dedication by Mizzou fans and our culture when time comes. You all will be happy it was us and not Morgantown in the end. Remember Mizzou started a great tradition for football and that was the first Homecoming. I am ready and am going to be one of the first people to buy tickets to VANDY, and TENN games when it happens. I am now not only a Die Hard Mizzou fan but a Die Hard SEC FAN.

Going back to the Civil War, save for Virginia and Tennessee, more battles were fought in Missouri than any other state. There are a good many Missourians, myself included, who identify themselves with the South and consider themselves Southerners and have the family tree to prove it. Joining the SEC is a dream come true for me and a lot of other Mizzou fans, I think.

Bottom line, as a cultural fit, much more has been made of perceived differences than really exist. It's not like it was Rutgers or Minnesota that's coming on board.

The stars on the flag argument might work but Missouri had its star on the Union flag also.

The 13 states with stars on the Confederate flag are the "southern states"

Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, and Missouri

All this stuff about Missouri not belonging is dumb, Missouri south of the Missouri River is basically Arkansas, while Missouri north of the river is basically Iowa (culturally speaking).

Lets add Oklahoma and Illinois next. After all, they border Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, & Kentucky.

Who really cares. I mean really, the "SEC" is a brand. It has been built upon years of tradition and success. It has been built upon powerful defenses and smashmouth football. It has grown and expanded by producing a quality product in football, baseball, softball, & gymnastics. It has been working to upgrade quality in basketball (men's & women's), and volleyball.

Growing the brand is what we are seeing. Expanding the reaches of the brand into new markets. You don't grow a brand like Mercedes by adding a brand like Chrysler (yes, I know they tried & history shows it didn't work) - Sorry WVA, Clemson, GaTech, L'Ville, Memphis, Miami, & Houston.

I remember thinking Arkansas & USC??? I get Arky, they are prolific winners in the SWC, but USC? Who knew they had a football team? But that add worked out OK didn't it? TxAM & Mizzou? both have been solid winners in football over the last dozen years. Both have some decent roundball chops. Beyond that, I really don't know anything regarding the "non revenue" sports so let's assume they are at least as run-of-the-mill as the current SEC twelve.

Regional? who cares.

"there isn't an official set of states that make up the Southeastern United States. However, most publications and the general population of the Southern United States generally agree that the region comprises Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, and West Virginia" - Allstates.asp

Half of all Mizzou fans are die-hards from Southern Missouri like myself. (Might as well be Arkansas) I think you will be surprised as to how similar Missouri is to Tennessee or Kentucky or Arkansas as far as fanship and culture. I think we may have trouble competing early on, but personally I think it is a good fit. I've always thought that Missouri could easily be considered Mid-south and as far as football goes could be a fit for other conferences than the Big 12. Forget the Big Ten rumors, I'm happy we found a home in the SEC.

Doesnt matter where Louisiana actually is, its considered southern and perception is everything. Likewise for Kentucky.

Well, If you are going to go by a strict definition of "regional", Louisiana is in the southwest, not the southeast, as the dividing line between southwest and southeast is the Mississippi River, which Louisiana is west of. Being below Arkansas, bordering Texas, not far from Oklahoma ... SEC affiliation might be the only reason why Louisiana is even considered to be in the southeast in the first place. Ditto Kentucky ... they're more midwestern/Appalachian than southeastern, the culture and even the terrain is different, and were they in the Big 10 instead of the SEC, it is debatable whether they'd be seen as "southern" either.

I say the benefits of adding A&M and Mizzou will be how the SEC is perceived nationally. There are some exceptions (i.e. the Gators and Alabama) but for the most part, the way that the national media views the SEC causes them to dismiss its teams if you give them half a chance. Please remember how ugly - and harmful - it got in 2003 and 2004 with LSU and Auburn and the BCS, and it also cost the SEC a title or three in the 1980s also. For the most part, the SEC is a collection of schools that few members of the national media attended - or would send their kids to - and that gives (or gave) the Big 10, the Pac-12, the ACC, the Big 12 (before it imploded that is) and even the Big East (again, before implosion) a huge advantage in how those conferences and their schools were covered and perceived. But now, having the #2 school in Texas and the flagship school of Missouri in the fold makes it a lot harder. Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (and remember, Atlanta is actually ACC territory despite the SEC title game being played there) wrote an excellent column to that effect on October 5. Read that and understand why Mizzou versus WVU was "no contest" even if WVU is better on the football field (an idea that I still somewhat dispute).