12 for ’12: Mizzou, A&M are the same fish in a new pond

Early narratives for the coming year. • Thesis. After 16 years as respectable, middle-class members of the Big 12, Missouri and Texas A&M;s defection to the SEC will prove to be a lateral move. • Point. Given some of the projections of doom for the Tigers and Aggies in their new league, you'd think they'd given up a chance to burn path of destruction through the old one. In fact, they're just trading one second-tier niche for another. Mizzou hasn't won a conference championship since 1969, in the old Big Eight; A&M hasn't won a claimed a conference crown since 1998, its last appearance in the Big 12 Championship Game. That was also the year Mack Brown was hired to resurrect Texas, just ahead of Bob Stoops' arrival at fast-fading Oklahoma in 1999. With the traditional regional powers restored to their traditional glory, A&M spent the last decade playing second banana not only to the Longhorns and Sooners, but also to traditional also-ran Texas Tech, w...