The thing that no one seems to be mentioning is that this is probably the SEC's get out of jail free card. They made the move to get A&M thinking expansion would be easy, and when they started looking at who #14 was, and they were staring down the barrel of admitting MU and WVU as their best options, they needed a way to hit the breaks on this without looking like a bad guy.
Enter this strange clause that had no prayer of being met, and boom, sorry A&M, we tried, but we didn't want to be sued. We'll send you a Christmas card. kthxbi.