The two newest members of the South Eastern Conference will be The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Oklahoma. SEC Presidents and Chancellors voted 14-0 this afternoon to invite Texas and OU to join the SEC. If you’ve read my last couple articles this comes as no surprise to you. You would also know that Texas and OU will not be waiting until 2025 as the SEC stated in their invite. If you missed that go checkout my previous article.
This was Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby’s response to the SEC vote. Once again we are seeing Bowlsby blame this on everyone else instead of taking the blame himself. If Bowlsby wanted the Big 12 to survive he should have been actively reaching out to teams to join the conference. Two weeks ago Bowlsby had this to say about realignment, “A lot of the motivation for realignment is no longer there. Is that to say it couldn’t happen? No, it could possibly happen for other reasons, but it doesn’t appear to me that the motivation is there at this point in time”. He later added “Not to say it couldn’t happen, but it’s not one of the things that keep me up at night” in reference to realignment.
Obviously Bowlsby was naive about how programs (mainly Texas and OU) really felt the conference was run. Now he’s resorted to sending a “cease and desist” order to ESPN, claiming the media enterprise was bribing Big 12 teams to leave the conference. ESPN of course denied the allegations saying “there is nothing to cease and desist. We trust this will put the matter to rest.” Any way you look at this you can tell Bowlsby was blindsided by the move from Texas and OU. I have no doubt in my mind Bowlsby will fight until the bitter end to keep Texas and OU in the conference through 2025. No matter how hard he tries, Texas and OU will be gone way before then.
Jumping over to the recruiting side for a second I have some bad new and some good news. I’ll start with the bad news so we can end on a good note. I previously reported that I believed three-star linebacker Jeremy Patton would be committing to Texas on Saturday. That is no longer the case. It appears Patton is now a slight Michigan lean. This would be a disappointing loss for the Texas staff but definitely one they could bounce back from. Now to the good news I also previously reported that four-star edge Derrick Brown would be committing to Texas on Saturday that is still the case. Brown will be a huge get for Sark and Co. at a position of need. Patton and Brown are very good friends and have talked about playing together at the next level. I say that to say this it wouldn’t surprise me to see Patton commit to Texas on Saturday, but as of right now it looks like it’ll be Michigan.