The landscape of college football was much different in 1990. No gorilla cable networks manipulating a thing. There was still a yearly payroll to be equally split in the SEC among members but it was a very much smaller amount. The CCG was seen by Kramer as a win-win on the monetary front, nothing more. The CCG would just make splitting SEC monies 12 ways instead of 10 ways more monetarily beneficial to all members.

FSU had always been an Independent before 1990. They were not crazy about joining any conference back then. The FSU administrators compared it to never being married before. Bowden did not want the SEC. FSU would have never joined the SEC back then.

You see what the SEC did with Missouri, stuck them in the East so Alabama could play Auburn & Tennessee both yearly. The SEC would have done the same type thing if two teams as Arkansas & Texas A&M had been added in the West in 1990. One would have just been thrown East.

It would have been somewhat interesting in 1990 if the Aggies had said yes to the SEC. Would the SEC then have taken Arkansas over South Carolina for #12? I would like to think so with the better historical program prior to 1990. Who knows though?

Whatever, if the SEC had taken those two programs from the SWC in 1990. The Big 12 would have been formed five years before 1995.