Conference Realignment, Academics And LSU's Real Talk

The Big Ten only accepts AAU members or temporary AAU members. The Pac-12 upholds the highest academic standards, prizing Arizona State's drunken beach ball thermodynamics program above all others. The SEC shouldn't accept West Virginia, as the Mountaineers would over night infect other SEC campuses with football mania.

As always, one or another person of status from the LSU Tigers is the voice of reason:

John V. Lombardi, the president of LSU, an SEC member, wrote in an email that he thinks talk about the academic compatibility of schools in realignment is a rationalization. "Once an athletic conference is expanded by the addition of athletically effective institutions with strong television markets, then the members talk about the relative wonderfulness of their members' academic profiles," he wrote.

Reached for further comment, Les Miles said, "Something it is that grows within a man, mostly on the outside of his mind but perhaps socially as well, that we can't forget about. Wishing and adapting are two different things, coincidentally; reaching beyond, you'll have to make those judgments for yourself, but I haven't been able to."

He didn't say that, but if he had it would make as much sense as claiming conference realignment has anything significant to do with academics.