While Baylor's legal threats have stalled Texas A&M's move to the SEC, Mike Slive made some comments today at a speaking engagement that indicate that it is only a temporary condition:
We remain optimistic that Texas A&M will be a member of the SEC and have started to look at schedules for 2012-13 involving 13 teams.
That line was a part of a larger comment on the conference expansion process. He included plenty of CYA language regarding A&M coming to him and not the other way around to keep the lawyers at bay. He also said, speaking for all of the league's members, that "we would very much like to have Texas A&M as a member of our conference." He further stated that the conference doesn't have any immediate plans to add a 14th member, as he's going for quality over quantity.
This is the most aggressive speech regarding A&M to come from the SEC to date. Even the announcement about the unanimous vote to accept TAMU's application was weakened by the language about it being on the condition that the Big 12 conference and its member schools do not sue. The SEC's public stance to date could be summed up as a fairly passive one, with the league not being in any rush to add the Aggies.
This statement from Slive makes it actually sound like the conference is enthusiastic and has some kind of sense of urgency in the matter. If you're curious as to what a 13-team SEC football schedule might look like, we covered that back in August. It's not pretty.