Missouri Tigers are Irrelevant in the SEC

The Missouri Tigers are on the verge of becoming irrelevant in football and men’s basketball in the SEC.

The Missouri Tigers are in their fifth year in the SEC after abandoning the Big 12. After some early successes on the gridiron, Mizzou is now struggling.

The Tigers won the SEC East in their second and third seasons in the conference, but have fallen off since. In the last two seasons, Mizzou has just three total conference wins.

Things are even worse in basketball. The SEC is known as the powerhouse football conference, so it isn’t shocking the Tigers are struggling there.

In basketball, though, Missouri should be competing and challenging for the top spots in the conference. After finishing fifth and sixth in the league their first two seasons, the Tigers finished last in each of the last two seasons on the hardcourt. They will most likely be toward the bottom this year as well.

This can’t be the direction Mizzou fans were hoping for when they scorned the Big 12 for the SEC. It has not helped the university has suffered some scandals and racial unrest, and enrollment has dropped drastically as well.

According to the Missourian, attendance is down 2,273.

"Late spring estimates from the University of Missouri System showed enrollment would drop by about 2,600 students. On Monday, 2,273 fewer students enrolled in classes, compared to 35,050 in the 2015 school year, according to an MU News Bureau news release."

"Of the 32,777 students enrolled in the fall semester, 4,799 were freshmen. That’s more than the projected 4,750 freshmen but still down by 1,412 from this time last year."

In a different article in the Missourian, the drop in enrollment has adversely affected the budget.

"Interim Chancellor Hank Foley announced a 5 percent cut to MU’s 2017 general revenue budget and an immediate hiring freeze in a March 9 memo. A $32 million budget gap was the result of an expected decrease in enrollment…"

In all honesty, the SEC wasn’t a good geographical fit for Missouri. Despite being only one of three teams west of the Mississippi River, the conference stuck the Tigers in the East division. The Tigers traded Kansas, Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State for Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt.

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Does this excite you as a Missouri fan?

The Tigers had a natural and historical relationship with the other teams in the Big 12. Other than maybe Arkansas, do you get fired up for any of these other opponents in the SEC?

Missouri’s last hires for head coach in both football and basketball indicate that being in the SEC did not help the university in attracting a big name coach.

Let’s be honest. Were Kim Anderson or Barry Odom your first choices, or second, or even third? The fact Missouri hired these two had to be a big disappointment. Is either going to be able to get the school into the upper echelon of either sport in the SEC?

Mizzou is very close to being a perennial non-factor in the SEC. If the basketball team finishes toward the bottom this season, and the two programs don’t make significant improvement next season, they will be mired at the bottom of a powerful conference.

Now, according to The Kansas City Star, the university is under investigation for academic fraud. Things continue to go awry for Mizzou.

Would this tailspin have happened if Mizzou had stayed in the Big 12? There is no way to know for sure, but one has to wonder.

Let’s face it; the Missouri Tigers made a big mistake, and now the university and the fans have to live with it.

Next: Mizzou Top Quarterbacks All-Time

Do you think the university made a mistake changing conferences? Would all of these issues have happened had they stayed put in the Big 12?

Things are spiraling downward and it is going to be tough for Mizzou to turn things around in the SEC.

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