Opinion — Crawling Back to [TAM]U: Longhorns and Sooners to Join SEC in 2025

Article By: James McKissick, Staff Writer | BCS Chronicle

What You Need To Know:

• The Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners are Set to Join The SEC in 2025.

• A texas university Was the Top Earning School in the Nation 2018-2019.

• The Texas Legislature Introduced a Bill in an Attempt to Block The Longhorns From Leaving the Big 12.

• The Longhorns Are a Bunch of Pansies That Won’t Survive in the SEC.

We here at the Bryan-College Station Chronicle consider ourselves to be pretty redass, so I think it comes as no surprise when we say we're incredibly conflicted about the news that a texas university and the University of Oklahoma will join the SEC in 2025.

 Why We’re Conflicted.

Of course, it's incredibly satisfying to have been pushed around and belittled by that school in Austin to the point where we decide to leave and go to a different conference, only 10 years later to see them floundering as a football program. The horns have been through four head coaches since we left, with the last 2 having a combined 39-34 record over seven seasons. That record would put them smack in the middle insofar as records go in the SEC in the same period, but then take into account the only team they've played from the Big 12 that has been in the national championship discussion in recent history has been OU, that record starts looking worse.

Now, the thought of renewing a rivalry that has taken a decade-long hiatus that should have never happened and caused both of the schools to lose their way, is incredibly exciting. Nothing unites two otherwise unrelated parties like a common enemy, and without a rivalry, some Aggies have slowly drifted apart from one another. (Second Disclaimer: I’m talking about t.u., not that sham of a rivalry with South Carolina the SEC tried to shove on us). One would think that, with a Longhorn for a governor, the legislature that tried to pass a law requiring Texas A&M and t.u. to play every year around Thanksgiving, would support the move to the SEC. But, a bill filed during the current special legislative session in Texas does not reflect that.

A Hate That Never Dies

Sure, things grow and change, but one constant that should never change is the Aggies’ burning hatred of the Texas Longhorns. (Disclaimer: when I say “hate”, it's all in good fun. I don't mean that I want to go out there and harm people, but instead nurture the burning desire to be better than that school in Austin in every way, and foster an attitude of excellence). Our willingness to abandon that rivalry and tradition so quickly with our move to the SEC shows that the school is losing its sense of commitment and tradition. It's that kind of thinking that has contributed greatly to the recent loss of school spirit. 

This hasn’t just affected Texas A&M. Without the supposed little brother (who's technically the older brother) to try to push around on the football field, Texas seems to have lost the will to play and have had to resort to getting beat year in and year out by Oklahoma to get their rivalry fix. Now, in all fairness to the Teasips, they do have two thirds of the wins in our over 100 years of playing football against each other, but disrespect is disrespect.

It's also incredibly frustrating to see the school that nearly killed the Big 12 by starting their own television network, and “asked” other schools within the conference not to play Texas A&M after we left, now trying to finish the job and leave like they did nothing wrong – throwing the rest of the Big 12 schools aside like a used napkin. Part of me is happy to see them come crawling to the SEC because this unequivocally says we won that breakup, but the other half of me wants to make them sit and suffer in the rubble of their bad decisions. Another part of me likes finally having some respect in the SEC, and am somewhat concerned that the disrespect may return with that school in Austin.

Out of Their League

What’s more, the SEC is big-boy football, and t.u. is soft. If record from the past 7 or so years isn’t enough indication, maybe you could use a reminder of the fact that this is the school whose head coach got the Big 12 to specifically penalize the “horns down” hand gesture as “unsportsmanlike conduct”, which is a 15 yard penalty, and an automatic ejection after the second penalty. Keep in mind that this kind of behavior has gone on for forever, and other schools have been on the receiving end, namely Texas A&M. After all, people flash the “thumbs-down” at Texas A&M year in and year out, but I guess Jimbo is too concerned with building a winning football program to go crying to conference officials about it. Don’t forget, t.u. is the school that doesn’t seem to have any problem with their players using classless hand gestures on the field that are actually considered offensive, despite what Tom Herman would have had you believe. That kind of weak culture is not reflective of the SEC, and as St. Paul once said: “a little yeast leavens the whole lump of dough,” or put another way: “a drop of poison ruins milk,” so don’t be surprised if the SEC starts to go soft.

It Just Means More… $$$

Hopefully t.u. won’t have the same influence in the SEC that they held as a founding member of the Big 12, but when they were the top earning school in the nation for the 2018-2019 fiscal year (beating 2nd place Texas A&M by 9 million dollars), I wouldn’t be surprised if they got the VIP treatment from the conference officials. For perspective, the next SEC school after Texas A&M on the list is the University of Georgia in 5th place, earning $49 million less than t.u. that year, so it’s obvious why the SEC voted unanimously to admit them. Yes, that includes a “yea” vote from Texas A&M mere days after athletic director Ross Bjork’s initial statement that A&M wanted to remain the only Texas school in the SEC. I guess when it comes to money...it really does mean more in the SEC.

Football Failures Remain Relevant Recruiters

I guess the only other thing to mention is that somehow, despite pitiful performances over the past decade, turning over coaches like minimum wage workers at McDonalds, and the SEC having nearly three times as many players in the NFL as the Big 12, somehow t.u. manages to remain competitive with Texas A&M on the recruiting front in the homeland, and them moving to the SEC could help them start to edge us out. Let’s just hope Jimbo can bag us a natty or two in the next five years so as to keep that a hypothetical advantage and remind everyone who the dominant team in Texas is before it’s too late.