By MIKE STRANGE, Scripps Howard News Service

A Southeastern Conference transition committee is at work on a new football schedule to accommodate Texas A&M and Missouri for 2012 and beyond.

I have a suggestion:

Call the Pac-12 and follow its advice. Do it now.

Off the top, I acknowledge that my suggestion is almost certain to fall on deaf ears. Too bad for you, fans.

Five thoughts on SEC football as the season approaches the two-minute drill:

1. A tip of the visor to Georgia and Mark Richt. Left for dead -- by many of their own fans -- after an 0-2 start, the Bulldogs have only one bit of unfinished business left to wrap up their first appearance in the SEC championship game since 2005.

A man stood before an audience of college football fans this week, and told them how it's going to be.

Conference expansion, he said, won't ruin college football. It will only change it.

The Alabama-Tennessee game won't go away, no matter how many teams the SEC adds.

As a point of full disclosure: Yes, I've been heard to gripe and moan about traveling to Starkville, Miss. and Auburn, Ala. and Oxford, Miss.

But they're family. You might not want to spend Thanksgiving at Uncle Rudy's, but you go. He's family. You have a history.

History doesn't count for much any more. Not in the fast-changing, big-bucks world of college football.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Math always has been a foreign language to me. Calculate a quarterback rating? Right. I might as well tackle Einstein's theory of relativity.

So when I brought up quarterback ratings earlier this week at the Tennessee football practice, I could to relate to Vols coach Derek Dooley's answer.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - The University of Tennessee can now close a chapter and move forward, it said Wednesday, its NCAA ordeal finally at an end.

That's only partially true.

The legal wrangling is over, agreed. The Committee on Infractions has rendered its penalties on the investigation into football and basketball allegations that dates back more than two years.

When we talk Southeastern Conference expansion and Texas A&M, what's your first image?

Probably Tennessee (or fill in the blank) running on to Kyle Field on a Saturday afternoon. The Yell Leaders, the 12th Man, Reveille and Smokey barking at each other.

Naturally. Football is driving the train.

Southeastern Conference men's basketball is changing shape. To what degree was the topic of discussion Monday when the coaches surfaced for a teleconference.

Like any coaching hire, the jury will be out on Cuonzo Martin for a couple of years.

Still, after watching the best seats on the college basketball-coaching carousel fill up, my early impression is that Tennessee did OK.

Would Vols fans rather have seen Mark Gottfried or Frank Haith introduced in an orange tie? I think not.

Final exams still await, but it's not too early to grade the Southeastern Conference football coaches on their body of regular-season work.

When the final standings vary considerably from the preseason projections, as was the case in 2010, it leads to some interesting grades.