What If... the Magnolia Conference was Formed?

When it comes to academics and athletics, one might point to the Ivy League's early string of dominance in the sport as the primary example of a conference of schools doing both at a high level at once. But a long time ago, there was a chance for another Ivy League-style of conference to be created: this time in the American South.

Of course, it was shot down---its potential member schools of SMU, Rice, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Duke, and the small Emory University in Atlanta decided it wasn't worth the academic investment. But what if they had decided to forgo their individual futures and move forward with their initial plans to create the Magnolia League?

Of course, as a hypothetical, there's a lot of "if"s and "maybe"s to sort out, and there's the distinct possibility that it wouldn't have succeeded anyway. But if we suspend our disbelief long and hard enough, we can see a potentially very disruptive change in the history of college sports as we know it.

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