The LSU soccer team is accustomed to Southeastern Conference Western Division championships after winning four of the last five.
That might not be possible in the foreseeable future, as the league unveiled a tough full conference schedule with the new, 14-team SEC for next fall.
Missouri and soccer power Texas A&M join the league from the Big 12 conference for the 2012 season, and their addition will eliminate divisional play and tack on two extra league games.
The Tigers compiled an 8-3 conference mark last season, won a division title, finished runner-up in the SEC and made the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in five seasons.
The team that ended LSU’s season in the NCAA first round was A&M, who the Tigers will host for the conference opener in September.
The Aggies ran roughshod over LSU in College Station in November and won, 4-0, to end the Tigers’ 13-8-1 season.
Despite the schools’ close proximity and rivalries across other sports, LSU and A&M have only met twice on the pitch throughout the last 17 years, with the Aggies claiming both meetings in NCAA Tournament action.
“We hope A&M will form a natural rival for us,” said LSU coach Brian Lee. “They’ll jump right into the fray from a competitive standpoint, and we recruit against them already. It should be a premier match every year.”
Texas A&M won nearly half of the Big 12’s soccer titles since the league’s inception, claiming seven conference championships in 15 seasons.
Elsewhere on the schedule, LSU will host national power Florida – which has won five of the last six SEC titles – on Oct. 5. The Tigers conquered Florida for the first time in school history in October with a 1-0 win in Gainesville, Fla.
LSU also welcomes Auburn and Vanderbilt, two of its three 2011 SEC losses, to Baton Rouge in 2012.
But a visit to defending conference champion South Carolina highlights a demanding road slate that includes an inaugural trip to Missouri and four consecutive away matches in October.
In a match that effectively decided the SEC regular-season championship, the Gamecocks drubbed LSU, 4-1, last November in the LSU Soccer Stadium.
Missouri captured back-to-back Big 12 titles in 2008 and 2009, and the team is a perennial contender for an NCAA Tournament bid joining a league that already placed eight teams in last season’s NCAA field.
“We’re going to have a really tough league,” Lee said. “Everybody keeps getting better, and then you add in two more teams that are consistent winners. It could be the deepest conference in the country.”
The Tigers tallied a 6-7 record away from home last season, but the team did go 4-2 in conference road games.
For the second straight year, LSU will begin league play with a four-game home stretch by following the A&M opener with September visits from Auburn, Alabama and Kentucky.
The Tigers went 4-0 during last fall’s initial homestand, outscoring Mississippi State, Tennessee, Georgia and Ole Miss by a combined score of 12-4.
Lee and LSU Associate Sports Information Director Will Stafford said they hope to have the non-conference slate solidified within the next month.
“The 13 games in conference will change our scheduling approach,” Lee said. “We have to be real selective in picking our non-conference games.”
 
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Contact Chris Abshire at [email protected]