Oklahoma, Texas officially join SEC: The goals are the same but the league name has changed

Before heading to the SEC spring meetings in late May, Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian stopped by his office. From his window, he saw the SEC logos that were being applied to the field at Royal-Memorial Stadium.

Recalling that scene a few days later in Destin, Florida, Sarkisian told reporters at the spring meetings that "It's all happening, it's becoming a reality and it's exciting."

Now, that reality is about more than decorations. Texas and Oklahoma woke up Monday morning as official members of the Southeastern Conference, which now has 16 schools. For the Longhorns and Sooners, the Big 12 is now a distant memory.

Texas goes from the Big 12 to the SEC in three years

So, how did we get here?

Reports broke on July 21, 2021 that Texas and Oklahoma had reached out to the SEC about joining. Nine days later, the two schools had formally accepted invitations. The Longhorns and Sooners initially were set to join the league in 2025, but a deal was struck with the Big 12 in February 2023 that moved those plans up a year.

In August 2021, Texas president Jay Hartzell told state legislators that he began talking to the SEC during that spring. But perhaps conference realignment's biggest domino began to fall much earlier.

When Hartzell arrived at Texas in 2020, athletic director Chris Del Conte said the new president asked about any ambitious and audacious goals that he had for the Longhorns. "Jay is one of those types of guys, he allows you to dream crazy dreams, but he believes in that. It's like manifest destiny with this guy," Del Conte told the American-Statesman last week.

At the time, Del Conte was trying to get a pulse on the future of college athletics. He was concerned about the Big 12's next TV deal, what an extension with the conference would look like and if realignment might be a better option. And since a 2017 law had eliminated tax deductibles tied to the purchase of season tickets, future revenue was also something he worried about.

"It was just these little events that were happening, that were stacking up right against each other," Del Conte said. "It was more of a bigger picture. It was never about any particular conference, it was really a bigger picture. Then he said, 'If you had your druthers, where do you think would look best?' I said probably the Southeastern Conference."

Geographically, the SEC makes sense for Texas. A potential move would also reunite Texas with rivals like Arkansas and Texas A&M. Meaningful games against those two and other top-tier competition from the SEC also would sell tickets and fill up DKR, which could offset some of those tax-related losses.

"That was all part of that," Del Conte said. "If that was to happen, (the SEC) would be a place that we will look at."

Texas, Oklahoma will make the SEC even stronger

For many collegiate sports, the SEC is considered the premier league. The Longhorns know that. Texas is also quite familiar with the SEC. During the 2023-24 school year, Texas went 13-8 in head-to-head competitions with SEC teams across various sports. Five Texas head coaches — baseball's Jim Schlossnagle (Texas A&M), women's basketball's Vic Schaefer (Mississippi State), track and field's Edrick Floréal (Kentucky), soccer's Angela Kelly (Tennessee) and women's tennis' Howard Joffe (Texas A&M) — have been head coaches in the SEC before.

In addition to their lengthy football success, the Sooners bring two of the dominant women's sports programs to the new league with softball winning the last four national titles and gymnastics winning five of the last eight championships contested. Oklahoma baseball played in the College World Series championship round in 2022 and won the Big 12 regular season this year.

Schlossnagle, who's coached A&M baseball the past three years, said last week at his introductory press conference that the SEC is "the major leagues of college baseball." That analogy makes sense since six different SEC schools have won six of the last seven national championships.

Schaefer recently told KVUE that making the move from the Big 12 to the SEC is like "jumping out of the frying pan and into the grease." He coached at Mississippi State from 2012-20 and also has worked at Arkansas. South Carolina and LSU, which have won the last three national titles, will welcome him back to the SEC.

Once a national championship-winning offensive coordinator at Alabama, Sarkisian has acknowledged that his football team will be "one of the first (Texas teams) to go compete. We want to make sure that we do our part and we know it's going to be a heck of a challenge. It's a really, really good league." Nine of the SEC's 14 football teams qualified for a bowl game in 2023.

"I've been excited for a long time. I'm all in," said Texas women's swimming and diving coach Carol Capitani, who spent 14 years as an assistant at Georgia. "It wasn't that I wasn't a fan of the Big 12, but competition makes us better, it's a strong part of my belief. (The SEC is) big-time swimming, it's big-time athletics."

Floréal, who coached at Kentucky from 2012-18, said in May that "I'm looking forward to getting to the SEC. It's been lingering long enough. It's like a rash, thinking of moving and moving and moving, so it's finally coming together. So for me, I'm looking forward to the move. I think the team is looking forward to the move. I think the entire universe is looking forward to the move and challenging ourselves in the SEC to see what we're capable of doing."

'Our goal is to win national championships'

Throughout this past school year, Texas coaches and athletes were hesitant to discuss the move to the SEC. That strategy came from up top. Del Conte had been attending meetings for both conferences for awhile, but stressed that "the biggest goal for us was to say let's live where our feet are." In turn, the Longhorns won 15 of the Big 12's 30 championships during the 2023-24 school year.

Texas teams were allowed to start focusing on the future once their seasons were over. As a whole, the Texas athletic department will do the same Monday. Del Conte, seated in his office for an interview with the Statesman on Thursday, pointed to some folded burnt-orange laundry on his desk and said, "this is my first (SEC) shirt."

"Now you'll see the bookstore will switch over to SEC gear, our uniforms and our facilities will switch over to SEC gear, but it's going to be really hot and heavy fast," Del Conte said. "The basic operations are the same, it's just a different team coming in. I don't think our fan base will really get completely immersed until they go through a full season of it."

On Sunday, Texas marked its entrance into the SEC with a daylong celebration that featured an autograph session with Longhorns coaches, a photo opportunity with Bevo XV, fireworks and a Pitbull performance. Then at midnight, a yearslong journey became a reality.

Texas will make its debut as a SEC competitor on Aug. 15 when the soccer team plays a home game against Houston. The volleyball season begins on Sept. 1. The football team will host Colorado State on Aug. 31.

Del Conte acknowledges that the SEC’s overall talent and depth will make competing in the new conference a yearlong grind. He stressed that the alignment between the Texas administration and athletic department will be key to a smooth transition. But Del Conte, who has been able to observe the conference while attending meetings the past three years and is friends with Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne and Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin, said the goals won’t change at Texas and he doesn’t plan on running the athletic department any differently.

“Our goals are always the same, be a top-five program in every sport we sponsor and compete for championships," Del Conte said. "New teams are coming in, but the goal will be the same. Our goal is to win national championships."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas, Oklahoma complete SEC move and bring high expectations