by Matthew Gailani

Earlier this summer it was announced that the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma, two programs steeped in college football history, would potentially be joining the sport’s premier conference, the Southeastern Conference (SEC). This news was quickly followed by a unanimous vote of the 14 SEC schools to allow Texas and Oklahoma into their ranks. Shortly after, the Texas and Oklahoma Boards of Regents accepted the offers, and both universities are set to join the conference in 2025.[1]

For journalists, former players, coaches, sports broadcasters, and anyone who follows college football, this change in conference makeup is historic. However, the truth is that this is not the first time the SEC has expanded or added a new program to its roster. In fact, the origins of the conference are rooted in change.

1967 “Southeastern Conference Football” Program (Tennessee State Museum collection 1998.89)

The history of the Southeastern Conference began in the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee in the winter of 1932. The occasion was the annual meeting of the Southern Conference, which was founded in 1921. Unlike today’s conferences which usually include between 10 and 14 teams, the Southern Conference in 1932 constituted a group of 23 different schools which included the University of Alabama, the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), the University of North Carolina, and Washington and Lee University.[2]

SEC Pennants (Tennessee State Museum collection 2007.146.28)

On the afternoon of Friday December 9, 1932, Dr. S. V. Sanford, president of the University of Georgia, according to press reports, “served notice” that 13 Southern Conference schools west of the Appalachian Mountains would be leaving the conference and banding together to form their own group. A vote was promptly held to determine if a committee would meet to discuss this turn of events, and the group ultimately voted 17-6 in favor. The result of the following committee’s deliberations was the splitting of the Southern Conference along geographical lines and the formation of the Southeastern Conference. The new SEC included: Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Louisiana State, Vanderbilt, Auburn, Sewanee, Georgia Tech, Tulane, Florida, and Kentucky. The old Southern Conference still included: VMI, Virginia Tech (VPI), Washington and Lee, South Carolina, Clemson, North Carolina, Duke, North Carolina State, and Maryland.[3]

Sewanee vs. Vanderbilt Program from 1938 (Tennessee State Museum collection 91.5.4)

Following the split, President John J. Tigert of the University of Florida released the following statement:

Since in our judgment the time has arrived for a more compact organization for the administration of athletics, it seems wise for a division of the Southern Conference to be made solely on geographical lines. The thirteen institutions in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee hereby tender their resignations as members of the Southern Conference and organize themselves in the Southeastern Conference… The real reason for this organization is a desire to form a conference of institutions in the same geographical territory.[4]

Tigert and others also stressed that the “best of feelings” remained between the SEC and the old Southern Conference. Professor W. A. Hobbs of the University of North Carolina also stated that “the [Southern] conference does not feel hostile to any group that wishes to withdraw.” However, he also clearly stated that, “there is no reason to dodge the issue. We have come to the parting of the ways.”[5]

If the leaders of different universities were cordial in their public remarks, the Knoxville press was a little more critical. In particular, the Knoxville press focused on the intentions of the SEC schools and the fate of old rivalries. Sports editors in both The Knoxville News-Sentinel and The Knoxville Journal covered the meeting and commented that the new SEC, or the “seceders” as one journalist dubbed them, were full of unsavory “politicians.” For example, Bob Wilson of The Knoxville News-Sentinel wrote:

There is no doubt about it, the Southeastern Conference seethes with politicians…don’t be surprised if the Southeastern group is reduced to 10 teams one of these days. It was my opinion that the boys might want to dispose of the three weakest members…unless internal politics is stamped out in the Southeastern Conference…the throat-cutting will be something terrible.[6]

Bob Murphy of The Knoxville Journal also used the “politicians” label to describe the SEC, writing:

Just what has been accomplished by this ‘split.’ Tennessee, for instance has pulled away from Duke, North Carolina, and others. They will still play, to be sure. But things will never be the same. Possibly within a few years rivalry between these schools will cease entirely. I can see one advantage in the division— one distinct advantage. The ten remaining members of the Southern Conference— those fine institutions that have always formed the northern group will no longer be forced to contend with a web of politics. The ‘politicians’ if you will pardon me saying so, are now where they belong— in ONE group. Tennessee is with them.[7]

These comments insinuated that perhaps the new SEC was not as concerned with tradition as the old Southern Conference and would even be willing to drop its weakest members in the future. In other words, they were more engrossed in their own institutions and were not “gentlemen” of the game, as one journalist put it.[8]

Vanderbilt vs. Tulane Program from 1958 (Tennessee State Museum collection 2007.146.26)

Yet, while these journalists criticized the newly formed SEC, its motives, and those running it, they did admit one thing: the SEC was competitively stronger. A headline in The Knoxville Journal on December 11, 1932 read, “Southeastern Group Retains Grid Prestige: Alabama, Tennessee, Tulane, Tech, LSU, Auburn, Dominate Dixie.”[9]

It is important to remember, despite the conference’s initial strength, that during the first several decades of its existence, the SEC shrunk instead of expanded. Sewanee left in December of 1940. Georgia Tech left the conference in 1964. Finally, Tulane was the last school to leave in 1966. It wasn’t until the 1990s, nearly 60 years after its split with the Southern Conference, that the SEC added two new teams to its ranks. These were the University of Arkansas and the University of South Carolina. Both officially joined the SEC in 1990/1991 and were, in the words of the SEC, “fully incorporated” into the conference by 1992. Arkansas had come from the now defunct Southwest Conference, and South Carolina football had been an independent program prior to joining the SEC.

Georgia Tech vs. Vanderbilt Program from 1949 (Tennessee State Museum collection EL4.1998.3)

Expansion struck again a few decades later when Texas A&M University and the University of Missouri joined the conference. Both schools had played in the Big 12 Conference previously, and they competed in all SEC conference sports for the first time during the 2012-2013 season.[10]

The result of all this history is a soon to be 16 team behemoth of a conference that stretches from Austin, Texas to Columbia, South Carolina and Gainesville, Florida to Lexington, Kentucky. Tulane vs. Sewanee and Georgia Tech vs. Georgia has been replaced by Texas vs. Oklahoma and Alabama vs. Texas A&M. However, as the history of college football and conference realignment shows us, change isn’t new.