It is difficult to say anything definitive on this subject considering that the Texas A&M melodrama has had more false starts than a Bob Connelly offensive line, but for the time being most reports indicate their departure is imminent. The Associated Press reported yesterday afternoon that A&M was expected to join the SEC sometime in the next week, and the Grey Lady had the following last night. Per the New York Times:
Texas A&M’s time as a member of the Big 12 is all but over. In a conference call Saturday that included the Big 12’s university presidents, R. Bowen Loftin, the president of Texas A&M, essentially said that the Aggies were leaving, and there was nothing the Big 12 could do to keep them, according to a person with first-hand knowledge of the call.
Multiple presidents on the call used the words “amicable divorce” when discussing the Aggies departure. That would seem to suggest that there will not be any protracted legal wrangling.
Obviously the next week looks to be highly eventful regardless with football season just on the horizon and several other issues to be resolved (see Carter, Duron), but you have to imagine that the A&M melodrama will have a definite resolution one way or the other before the season opener this upcoming Saturday. I highly doubt A&M, the Big XII, or the SEC would allow the expansion cloud to linger into the season and result in an ongoing distraction, so a resolution to this matter should reasonably be expected in the next several days.
As has always been the case with A&M-to-the-SEC, clearly a fourteenth team will be added at some point, though it's difficult to say if that too could happen in the near future. It's hard to see the search for a fourteenth team dragging on publicly for months and months, and if A&M is legitimately going to join the conference the odds are that the fourteenth team has been determined by this point, so it's possible we could see a fourteenth team announced shortly after the A&M announcement.
Either way, for the time being, chime in here with all of your conference expansion thoughts and comments.