So in another thread on the main page I looked up US News rankings for each school. I recognize that those rankings are not the best, but they were easy access and allowed me to look at some general numbers for expansion. For instance: UConn at 57 could be academically considered a peer of Texas, but not Cincy at 140. That helps explain some of the issues in expansion (ex: Memphis as unranked is an issue for any P5).

So I played with the numbers and realized that if the Pac-12 took Texas/OK/OK State/Texas Tech, their average would drop low enough that with decent picks (ie getting UNC/Duke, etc) the SEC could become their academic equals.

So... scenario! Let's set it up this way. Considering each of the following categories, what schools would you add to the league (at 16 or 18, lets say). Don't consider the other categories except as a tie breaker. Picks should be "reasonable" in the sense that even if it doesn't matter for the category, the adding that school to the conference makes some amount of rationale sense (example: The SEC adding Stanford is bizarre, and so is the SEC adding FIU, but ECU could make sense in some of these categories):

Academics: Which schools make the most sense to add that would help academics?
Markets: Which schools add the most markets to the league without considering other factors?
Culture: Which schools best fit the culture of the SEC?
Football: Which schools are the best "football brands" to add?
Basketball: Which schools would the league add if we were all in on basketball?
Other: Is there another category you think I should have listed?

My thoughts:
Academics: Virginia, UNC, and Duke + one of Miami or Texas
Markets: one of UNC/Duke, one of Virginia/Tech, Texas or OK, maybe Pitt?
Culture: FSU, Clemson, VTech, maybe NC State?
Football: FSU, Clemson, Oklahoma, Texas
Basketball: UNC, Duke, Kansas, and Virginia or Louisville