Auburn Supports Move to East But SEC Appears to Be in No Hurry

Last week, Yellowhammer ran a story on Pat Dye’s hope that Auburn will move the SEC East, also noting that Head Coach Gus Malzahn expressed support for the idea if scheduling could be arranged. At the time of last week’s story, however, it wasn’t clear if Auburn officially supported this position, but that changed at this week’s SEC’s meetings at Sandestin, Florida.

According to a report by Brandon Marcello of 247Sports, Auburn Athletic Director Jay Jacobs made his position clear to reporters, saying:

It makes more sense for Auburn from the standpoint of the demographics of our students, not our student-athletes…Six or eight years ago, I looked at all the demographics. Most of all our students come from Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, a few from Mississippi, very few from Louisiana. Since we went to the national championship twice we’ve got more geographical students from all over the place but still the majority of our students come from the southeast.

When reporters asked Jacobs if the reason was to replace the likes of Alabama, LSU, and Ole Miss with Kentucky, Vandy, and South Carolina, he rebuffed the notion, returning to the geographical argument:

You know what, Florida won two national championships, so you can’t schedule based on where you think the easier place is going to be because you end up jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The thing that doesn’t make sense geographically is the Missouri fans, and the travel they have to do. We have to look at what is the thing that is going to preserve the game and keep us strong and good for the student-athletes. That’s really what it’s about, not what the easier road is. There’s no such thing in this league, at least I haven’t found one.

Nevertheless, it appears Auburn may have a steep hill to climb with SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, who told reporters: “It’s not an agenda item.” And Mizzou Athletic Director Jim Sterk seemed to be fine with that, telling the Kansas City Star, “The SEC leadership is not discussing this issue as the commissioner stated yesterday, and furthermore, Mizzou is happy with the divisional alignments as they stand today.”

Time will tell if the SEC will formally consider the move, but one thing that does appear clear for now is that Auburn will be urging them to do so when they feel the time is right. As the Kansas City Star reported, Jacobs said, “We’re not going to talk anything formally about it this weekend or this week, but, at some point, we will.” Trading places with Missouri is a “legitimate conversation to have at some point as a league” and it “makes sense.”

Stay tuned!