One some level, the biggest story in the SEC in 2011 shouldn't come as a real surprise to anyone. After all, we wrote more than 80 posts in our conference realignment coverage, and even that number seems unrealistically low in light of the way the story dominated much of the college football season this season. Even when college football fans wanted to focus on what was happening on the field, some new story would come to jerk our attention back toward the back-room dealings that were reshaping the sport's most basic structure.

In fact, when Year2 first linked to the rumors coming out of Texas that A&M was once again interested in joining the SEC, we weren't quite sure how seriously to take it. There was plenty of reason to be skeptical, after all; we had been down this road with Texas A&M back in 2010, and this year's deal was declared dead (or to have never been truly alive) more than once.

Then, Rick Perry opened his mouth -- something we were all were about to discover is usually a bad idea. Suddenly, the rumors went mainstream. The next thing we knew, Texas A&M was moving board meetings up to vote on realignment, and the SEC was meeting to consider Texas A&M. By mid-August, it seemed like realignment would be done within a matter of days.

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There wasn't too much new news in the official press conference re-announcing that Missouri has moved to the SEC for 2012, but here are a few tidbits for those who missed it:

• Missouri will go to the SEC East. That's not really a huge surprise given the scheduling headache that the Tigers would have caused if they had been in the SEC West. The names are a little ridiculous, but you can actually draw clean line between the SEC East and the SEC West (even if it's not really a north-south line) so it's not like some of the other conferences out there (cough cough ACC cough cough Big Ten cough).
• A cross-divisional rival to be named later. I didn't hear anyone directly address which team would be Missouri's rival from the SEC West, though Texas A&M has to be the front-runner for now. The other two additions to the conference were paired with each other in the 1992 expansion (Arkansas and South Carolina), which is both a pattern and a reason to keep those two teams together. If we go to a nine-game schedule (dicey) and two cross-division rivals (unlikely), Missouri might get Arkansas as its other annual foe from the SEC West.
• The most telling moment of the press conference was when Mike Slive didn't know. There were several mentions of how Missouri would be a full member of the SEC from day one -- HELLO BIG 12 -- but the best veiled shot probably came when a reporter asked Mike Slive what the SEC's policy was toward a grant of rights, a television term that's gotten a lot of play in the Big 12 as that conference tries to piece itself back together on slightly more equitable footing. "I'm not sure I know what a grant of rights means," Slive responded. One of the things we can be grateful for as SEC fans is that our league has never decided to allow some teams to become wealthy by leaving others behind. There's a reason why teams are more eager to join this conference than to leave it.

In addition, it was pretty clear that the SEC and Missouri really expect this to take place for 2012. I have a hard time believing they would make a point of this if it's a losing battle. The Big 12 seems to have given up on Missouri as a member, and will instead take its chances that the courts will rule in favor of West Virginia on the exit requirements.

There are still plenty of details to be ironed out over the next few months, but the SEC finally appears to be done with the big-ticket expansion issues. Finally.

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For those who have been living under a rock somewhere, this might come as a bit of a surprise, but the SEC made it's long-awaited announcement Sunday that Missouri will join the conference as its 14th (and final?) member. For 2012. Probably.

"I am pleased to officially welcome the University of Missouri to the SEC family on behalf of our presidents, chancellors, athletics directors, students and fans," said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive.  "Missouri is an outstanding academic institution with a strong athletic program.  We look forward to having the Tigers compete in our league starting in 2012."

The Big 12 and Ken Starr's lawyers might have something to say about that. The once-again nine-team Big 12 has made it clear that it would like to stay at 10 teams throughout the conference realignment mess -- but West Virginia and the BIG EAST have gone to court over whether the BIG EAST can enforce its 27-month notice requirements exiting the conference. (Which is why none of the Kardashian sisters are members of the BIG EAST.)

Interesting side note: There is no mention of the Tony Barnhart interview on the SEC's now-official announcement website. I'm sure this is an oversight and in no way related to the questions raised about a journalist being a part of an SEC media-relations effort. After all, Barnhart said there's nothing at all wrong with that.

Missouri would appear to be the SEC's last addition in this round of conference expansion, though the league hasn't yet made that announcement. We've been hearing for months that the era of the 16-team superconference is coming eventually, and while it still very well might be, the SEC appears to have worked under the idea of adding Texas A&M and a 14th member before closing the books for now.

Also unanswered in the SEC's official announcement: Any mention of whether the Tigers will join the SEC East or the SEC West. The assumption is that Missouri will join the East, despite this making absolutely no geographical sense, to avoid having to choose between Alabama's highly-regarded rivalries with Auburn and Tennessee. Those questions could be answered at a rally later today to mark the announcement, at least if Slive and Missouri Chancellor Brady Deaton are ready to take questions.

But maybe, just maybe the endgame has started on this cycle of conference realignment. The likelihood of that depends at least in part on how well the BIG EAST's expansion plans go. But if all goes well for that league, maybe we can once again focus on the football part of college football.

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Let's go with the cliche that turnabout is fair play: The Big East has now sued West Virginia to enforce its 27-month exit clause days after West Virginia sued the Big East to allow it to get out from under that exit clause. If you were worried that conference realignment might happen without a legal mess, put your mind at ease.

"Today's legal action underscores The BIG EAST Conference's stated position that it will vigorously pursue the enforcement of its rights and West Virginia University's obligations under the conference's Bylaws which West Virginia formally agreed to and helped construct," Big East commissioner John Marinatto said in a statement.

For the most part, this isn't really that surprising. If West Virginia manages to get the exit requirements struck down, then Syracuse and Pittsburgh can likely also get out from under them, and the Big East might not have enough time to put itself back together again. When you're fighting for your survival, every month of that survival is worth it.

Again, this is a complicating factor for the SEC's drive to add Missouri, though it's not clear exactly how much the battle between the Big East and West Virginia mucks things up. The Big 12 clearly wants to remain a 10-team league through the realignment saga, and might be willing to fight Missouri's move or at least try to gum up the works to keep the Tigers in the fold through 2012 if the Mountaineers can't come. That said, the conference also appears to be writing off Missouri for 2012, but generally in relation to the West Virginia move.

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It's Monday, so it must be time for all the wheels of the conference realignment saga to start creaking again. And they began In Columbia, where Missouri Chancellor Brady Deaton has announced he will postpone his trip to India, something that was seen as a roadblock to any Mizzou-to-the-SEC announcement that didn't happen today not coming until Nov. 10 at the earliest.

But MU spokeswoman Mary Jo Banken said Monday that the chancellor won't go so he can deal with other duties in his office that are more important. Later, Deaton's administrative assistant told The Star that Deaton has delayed but not cancelled his trip.

Since Deaton could ruminate on the pros and cons of conference realignment from his hotel on the Ganges River as easily as his home in Missouri, this likely means he's either actively working on extracting Missouri from the Big 12 or getting ready for an imminent announcement of what the Tigers are likely to do. But, again, this is largely just a guess about a process that's pretty fluid to begin with.

Meanwhile, Mike Slive continues to be unable to get his presidents to shut up. Now it's South Carolina President Harris Pastides who's breaking the SEC's preference to do these things relatively quietly.

This is notably not "they have the votes," but it also seems calibrated to convey a sense that Missouri is on fairly solid ground. Maybe the lingering objections to the Tigers coming along for the ride have faded away or been addressed.

And the date when Missouri joins our conference? That's contingent upon a series of events that would include when West Virginia can join the Big 12 from the Big East. And they've decided to resort to what we'll call the Ken Starr Option.

In an e-mail to the league’s presidents Monday, Big East commissioner John Marinatto wrote that "we have been advised by West Virginia league council that the University is filing suit against the Big East Conference today (Monday) – presumably to get relief from the withdrawal provision contained in our bylaws."

Marinatto used the wrong version of "counsel," but that's really an academic point right now. If West Virginia is cleared to head to the Big 12 in 2012, Missouri will likely be free to go to the SEC in 2012, though it's not clear exactly how West Virginia is going to prove it's case.

We're sure that Ken Starr is outraged -- outraged -- that West Virginia wants to break out rivalries that have lasted decades and use the legal process to do so. Lawsuits are supposed to be used to keep teams in conferences they don't want to remain a member of, after all.

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Any hopes that the Big East had of remaining an automatic qualifying conference for the BCS hinged on keeping West Virginia, which is sometimes the only ranked team in the Big East at the end of each year and almost always the best football team in the conference. West Virginia's gone.

And about Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell's efforts to deep-six any move to the Big XIIish, especially sans Louisville?

Big 12 officials participated in an early-morning conference call in which they discussed inviting West Virginia and Louisville, but Louisville could not gain enough support.

This is really quite an accomplishment for as dysfunctional a conference as the Big 12; it's the first time in about 10 years that I can remember anyone defeating a McConnell filibuster. This tells you something about the state of the U.S. Senate, but I'm a political reporter, so I'll stop before I get too far into commentary that I shouldn't engage in and that's really not even necessary for a sports blog.

So that's it, right? Of course not. This is conference realignment that we're talking about here, meaning that nothing is ever that easy.

"We have taken West Virginia’s possible departure into account as we have moved forward with our own realignment plans," Marinatto said. "West Virginia is fully aware that the Big East Conference is committed to enforcing the 27-month notification period for members who choose to leave the conference."

Statements by the Big 12 and West Virginia, however, say the Mountaineers will begin playing in the Big 12 next season.

This is not a small detail for the SEC's expansion plans. if West Virginia isn't allowed to bolt ahead of next year, the Big 12 is expected to try to lock down Missouri until 2013, which could leave the SEC playing a monstrous 13-team schedule in 2012.

The only question is whether the Big East membership might finally be willing to do what John Marinatto clearly hasn't: Give up on salvaging the league as a football conference. At that point, West Virginia and Missouri would be free to follow through on their plans for next season. I wouldn't suggest you hold your breath waiting for that.

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It was kind of fun while it lasted. For about 15 or 20 minutes Thursday night, the SEC was a 14-team league, as word spread like wildfire over Twitter about the existence of an official Web page that said the Tigers had joined the SEC. A page that looked something like this.

via @VUGymRat

We've got another screen-shot of a different page -- this one on the connections between the SEC and Missouri -- below the jump. And Year2 has helpfully cataloged all the pages as PDFs in a file you can download here. Meanwhile, we have to wonder what all of this means, if anything, in the context of the bizarre conference realignment saga and the SEC's courtship of Missouri's place in it.

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Well, the one thing Big 12 interim commish Chuck Neinas, Georgia athletics director Greg McGarity and most of the impartial observers outside of the SEC and Columbia, Mo., seem to agree on, it's that the most likely scenario is for Missouri to join the conference in 2013 instead of in 2012. So, what would that mean? Well, it would first mean -- I'm sorry, Mike Slive, you wanted to say something?

Oh. I see. (HT: Eye on College Football)

Of course, there's still a lot of this realignment game to play out, from the Big 12 and Congressional warfare over Louisville and West Virginia to the slight technicality (which everyone seems to forget) that Missouri HAS NOT OFFICIALLY LEFT THE BIG 12 OR JOINED THE SEC YET.

But if Missouri joining the SEC for 2012 is off the table, no one's told Slive yet.

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