Whether you are looking for more space to host those game day parties or looking to upgrade, Stein & Summers is your #1 fan in helping you find the home of your dreams! We have over 100 licensed agents servicing Kansas City, St. Joseph, and surrounding areas - including Kansas! Interest rates are at a record low while homes sales prices are at a record high! Contact us today to get started.
1) I find myself this morning harkening back to simpler times. Times when the SEC had 14 teams, Texas and Oklahoma ran the Big 12 and college athletes played for the love of the game and didn't demand any of the millions of dollars they produced by playing football. It was a month ago. By August 1, Name, Image and Likeness will be a month old. Texas and Oklahoma will likely have informed the Big 12 they are done playing in the Big 12 (by 2025 at the latest, but in all likelihood a fair amount sooner) and the SEC will be on the verge of becoming college sports' version of the Death Star. I don't think it's overstating it to say that this month may end up being the most transformative month in the history of college sports. Whether you think the changes are good, bad or a little bit of both, there is no denying that what happens in July of 2021 will completely change the face of college football, and as a result, all of college sports, like few other months ever have.
That said, God do I love conference realignment. I've been checking various message boards every few minutes since Wednesday afternoon. If it was a drug, I'd be a full blown addict. I would empty my bank accounts to follow it. I love it all. It's been way too long since it's been a part of my life. Everything else is secondary for me these days.
2) Can a Longhorn change its stripes? This is the only hesitation I've seen from anyone on the SEC side of things (other than A&M, who hates pretty much everything about this for reasons that are partly the same as everyone else's, but go much, much deeper). Texas is a bully. It always has been. When the Southwest Conference fell apart, the Big 12 was formed. The main goal of that was to get Texas (and to some extent A&M, but more Texas--by the way, many don't remember the Aggies had eyes on the SEC way back then). State politicians shoehorned Texas Tech and Baylor into the league. That was the price of getting the Longhorns. Texas didn't take long to start throwing its weight around. In retrospect, the Big 12 was doomed as soon as Irving, Texas was chosen as the league headquarters. The Big Eight HQ had been in Kansas City, along with the conference basketball tournament, and it was thoroughly a midwest league. That went away with the addition of the Texas schools. Technically, the Big Eight absorbed the four Texas schools. In reality, Texas brought the Big Eight into its own new creation.
Adding Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC makes a world of sense. It makes sense in almost every facet. The one hesitation is, will Texas finally quit being Texas? I think so because I think the SEC is strong enough to make sure that happens. I have a hard time seeing Texas having success shoving around the likes of Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Florida and the schools that formed this league and built it into the powerhouse we know today. But I do understand the reservations. Texas is the friend you tolerate because he opens doors for you. He knows people and he has a lot of money and he gives you opportunities you wouldn't have without him. But you still hate him as much or more than you like him. There are three possibilities here. I list them in the order of likelihood:
*Texas tries to do what it's always done, but the SEC has the stones to prevent it.
*Texas understands that asking the SEC to be included comes with the price tag of checking its ego at the door and it's actually ready to try to get along with other schools for the first time in its modern history.
*Texas hasn't changed and manages to wreck a third straight conference.
3) So let's look at what the end goal is here. It's not just getting OU and Texas. It's about being the unquestioned leader in this new age of college football (because this is really all about football even though the other sports still happen and some people do care about them). When this story first came out, I asked a source if he thought it had legs. Basically, he told me "The whole landscape is going to change. And the SEC is going to do what it has to do to be at the front of that." Another source, who was initially skeptical it would happen, told me a couple of days later "Sankey wants to be ahead of everyone else...What if UT and OU went to the Big Ten?"
That's a key question. Oklahoma and Texas are going somewhere. This last ditch "Please, baby, we'll do anything you ask us if you'll just stay with us" plea from the Big 12 isn't going to work. The Sooners and the Longhorns know they can't continue to pull eight other schools along in their wake. The finances of the Big 12 don't work going forward if they want to compete with the best in the country. So they're going somewhere. Just as important as getting them in the SEC is making sure nobody else gets them.
And the more I think about it and talk to people, the more I believe this is the first step in the separation of the big boys from everyone else in college football. I'm not smart enough to know what that's going to look like. But it's no coincidence that this is happening as Greg Sankey is openly talking about Power Five autonomy. The SEC will have 16 teams by the start of the 2021 football season (not that OU and UT will start playing in the SEC, but they'll be like Missouri was in 2011-12; they're still playing in the Big 12, but they're no longer in the Big 12).
More importantly, they will have a majority of the college football bluebloods. I think it's fair to call Alabama, Georgia, Florida, LSU, Texas and Oklahoma bluebloods. Texas A&M and Tennessee aren't, but the Vols have been in the past and the Aggies are knocking on that door. Here are the bluebloods the other leagues have:
Big 12: none
Big Ten: Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State (sorry, Nebraska, not anymore)
PAC 12: USC. You can make an argument for Oregon, but they're kind of new money.
ACC: Florida State (?). Clemson is similar to Oregon. They're clearly one of the most valuable commodities in college football, but they've only really been in that discussion for about a decade.
That's six to eight in the SEC and at most seven everywhere else. Yes, the SEC was already the most powerful and best league in college football before last Wednesday. But with this move, it becomes more powerful than everyone else combined. The SEC can call the shots.
Again, I don't know for sure what those shots are. Is it "Hey, Big Ten, come with us, form this separate level of college football and we'll pick the rest of the schools we want to bring?" Is it the SEC, PAC12, Big Ten and ACC all moving together and adding a handful of other teams? I don't know. And I don't know what the timetable is. But I think it's coming in some form.
