Technically, College Station is indeed west of Columbia. There isn’t a map in any convenience store that will tell you otherwise.

That doesn’t mean Missouri belongs in the SEC East, though. Unfortunately, the Tigers joined the best conference in America at the same time as Texas A&M, back in 2012. So the Aggies went to the West, while Mizzou got stuck in the East.

As a matter of fact, Missouri’s campus lies further west than those of Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss and Mississippi State — five of the seven programs in the division. Only A&M and Arkansas are actually west of Mizzou. Perhaps it’s long past time for the league to get with Google Maps and think about realignment.

"I'd rather see Auburn in the East than us play Alabama every year." -- Pat Dye

Another school already has its hand in the air. Up and down the chain of command, Auburn would like to move to the East.

“We’re on the eastern part of Alabama,” former Tigers coach Pat Dye said recently on the Paul Finebaum Show. “We’re 30 miles from Georgia. We touch Florida and Tennessee, and we need to be in the East and Missouri needs to be in the West. They could build traditional games with people that are closer to them, where the fans could travel. … It’s a tremendous disadvantage to Missouri being in the East.”

Strictly in terms of longitude, by far the easiest solution would be for both sets of Tigers to switch divisions.

Not only is Auburn the easternmost school in the West, but it’s much further east than Columbia. As a matter of fact, it’s further east than Nashville, too. A case can be made that Vanderbilt belongs in the West before Auburn.

On average, Missouri is approximately 680 miles away from each of its six divisional opponents. Were the Tigers to flip-flop with Auburn and go to the West, that average would drop to 565 miles. That’s enough of a difference to have an effect on travel costs, both for the program and fans making road trips to away games.

Credit: John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

You wouldn’t even have to scrap the much-revered Iron Bowl. Simply make it the yearly crossover game for Alabama and Auburn.

“You look at the map, and obviously it makes sense,” Malzahn told reporters last week when asked about Dye’s comments. “There’s a lot more to it than just the map and all that. But that’s his opinion and he’s been around a long time, but there’s a lot more to it.”

Currently, Auburn’s annual crossover game is with Georgia. That rivalry wouldn’t disappear if the Tigers and Bulldogs were in the same division. They’d continue to see each other on the schedule every season.

As for Missouri, its present crossover battle is with Arkansas. While it qualifies as the proverbial “border war,” it has no real history and wouldn’t be missed by many if it up and vanished. The real tragedy was the death of Missouri-Kansas when the Tigers left the Big 12. Those two had met 120 times dating back to 1891.

"Are we willing to give up the traditional rivalries? When you look around the nation at conferences that have done realignment, they've lost some of those rivalries. Has that helped them or hurt them? I don't really know." -- Jay Jacobs

Missouri and Tennessee share a border, as well. The Volunteers surely wouldn’t mind dropping ‘Bama in favor of Mizzou.

“Are we willing to give up the traditional rivalries?” Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs asked last week on WNSP-FM 105.5. “When you look around the nation at conferences that have done realignment, they’ve lost some of those rivalries. Has that helped them or hurt them? I don’t really know.”

Clearly, we know where Auburn stands on the subject. Desperate as it sounds, Dye, Malzahn and Jacobs have practically been campaigning for such a move. It would certainly give the Tigers an easier path to the SEC Championship Game.

But what does Missouri think? Those Tigers stunned the conference with back-to-back East titles in 2013-14. Unquestionably, Mizzou benefited from Florida, Georgia and Tennessee not having their acts together. Had former coach Gary Pinkel and Co. been in the West, chances are they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near Atlanta.

Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Nevertheless, it appears to be a moot point right now. At the league level, such discussions simply aren’t happening.

“Is that an agenda item? No,” commissioner Greg Sankey said Wednesday at the SEC’s spring meetings. “Do you talk about it in media press conferences? Regularly. There’s almost this cycle now. It’s two years that you can begin predicting what will happen May 1st. The national membership conversation, then at some point someone will talk about division alignment. I think the next question is about a nine-game schedule, none of which are on our agenda.”

That being said, just because it’s not on the agenda now, that doesn’t mean it won’t be soon. There was a time when the BCS looked like it was in our lives forever, but now we’re getting ready for Year 4 of the College Football Playoff.

"Is that an agenda item? No. Do you talk about it in media press conferences? Regularly." -- Greg Sankey

Another conversation that has been happening around the country lately involves doing away with divisions altogether. The way things stand today, it wouldn’t be a bad move for the SEC. The West is far superior to the East, which means the conference’s top two teams haven’t been meeting in the Georgia Dome lately.

The last four league title games, two of which involved Missouri, have been won by an average of 24.5 points.

Any potential reshuffling that involves scrapping Auburn-Alabama shouldn’t be taken seriously. The Iron Bowl is too important to the very fabric of Rivalry Weekend — not just in the SEC, but nationwide — in late November.

Conference realignment already killed Missouri-Kansas, even if that matchup was more about tradition for tradition’s sake. It’s not like either has ever truly been a pigskin power. But we may never again see Texas-Texas A&M or Oklahoma-Nebraska, either. Those are travesties of gridiron justice in my old-school eyes.

Auburn is waiting by the phone, but the SEC isn’t dialing its number. If Mizzou got the call, it probably wouldn’t answer.