Conference Expansion: West Virginia Rejected by SEC and ACC?

UPDATE: West Virginia Illustrated quotes a Big East source as stating this is an “outright lie.”

Some breaking news in the conference expansion department, as it looks like one particular move that we all expected may not be happening after all.

CBSSports.com’s Brett McMurphy just dropped this little piece of info via Twitter:

Wow. Didn’t see that one coming. Most had seemed to already call West Virginia to the SEC a lock. But now, there’s gonna be a lot more speculating as to who that 14th member in the conference will be. And the 15th. And the 16th.

Missouri is another school that has been rumored to make the jump to the SEC, but there’s nothing concrete to suggest that at this point.

You would almost think that Missouri has to be one of the options now that West Virginia is out of play.

But what now for West Virginia? There was a report yesterday that discussed the possibility of a Big East/Big 12 merger, so maybe they’ll just stay in the Big East and be a part of that equation. The only other option for them at this point in terms of a move to a major conference would be the Big Ten, and I don’t really see that one happening.

This particular story definitely adds some intrigue to this whole situation. The SEC has to have a 14th member in mind, and my guess is that we’ll hear something from that 14th member in the next few days.

So once again, we wait.

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