An intriguing marriage of convenience began this week: Texas and the SEC. After three years of looking like they would enter the conference humbly, the Longhorns spent the week before hiring a baseball coach in grandiose fashion and having quarterback Quinn Ewers proclaim the Longhorns would be “everyone’s biggest game, for sure.”
Unless of course, Texas is joining a conference that has five programs that have combined to win 13 national championships since Texas won its last one.
Quinn Ewers on Texas being in the SEC:
“We’re going to be everybody’s biggest game, for sure.”https://t.co/68VTyGPWCK pic.twitter.com/WNMRoegN3r
— On3 (@On3sports) June 28, 2024
That said, Texas’ football team may be pretty good this year. And so as the Longhorns begin their membership, let’s dive into the subject that has been dormant for the past few years:
Note: Submitted questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Will the additions of Texas and Oklahoma on Monday cause a lot of heartburn for “old-school” SEC fans? Both of those fan bases seem to need a lot of attention (especially the burnt orange). — Chuck H.
My guess is Oklahoma fans reading that say: “Hey, why bring us into this?” Texas is the one that started its own network, which didn’t end up working well enough as hoped, so Texas felt it needed to join the SEC to avoid falling behind. When it was announced three years ago, I asked a few people around the league, and their only concern was Texas throwing its weight around like it did in the Big 12, a concern that in the past three years had receded. In various administrative meetings, and just in general publicly, the Longhorns had acted nice.
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Then came the Jim Schlossnagle hiring. Just by itself, you can’t blame Texas, which has a responsibility to hire the best coach it can, and if a school can hire a coach who got his team to the national championship game, then it should do it. But the way it was handled — mainly by Schlossnagle, but a bit by Texas — was eyebrow-raising. Clearly, this was a deal that was done well in advance. Texas could have waited to fire its coach after the national championship game, but instead, it did so the day of it, and then you had all the ensuing news conference and portal drama. Again, some of it, you can’t blame the Longhorns, but I can’t imagine Greg Sankey looking positively at all the drama.
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The rest of the conference has to be hoping this is just a one-off and that Texas is going to fit seamlessly into a league where nobody throws its weight around, publicly or privately. It’s been an underrated strength of the conference, that everyone knows the league office is in charge.
But this can’t be pleasant for Texas A&M. One of the main reasons it joined the SEC was to get out of Texas’ shadow, and for a while, it worked: Johnny Manziel, hiring a national championship-winning coach away from Florida State and this baseball run. But the Schlossnagle hiring, intended or not, came off as a message from Texas that it’s back in charge in that state.
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It’s going to be up to the Aggies to fight that on and off the field. I have more confidence that the rest of the league will keep Texas in line when it comes to business and off-field matters. The conference was doing fine without the Longhorns and would do fine without them. And there are too many other good programs with good resources to have Texas dominate the league, especially when it couldn’t dominate the Big 12.
I have less confidence the Aggies are as in as good a shape now that they’re back under the same umbrella as the Longhorns. We shall see. Speaking of which …
Do you see Mike Elko having a Brian Kelly-like first season with plenty of leftover talent and a good coach outperforming expectations? — Thisisalongnam E.
There’s a decent chance of that. There’s a returning quarterback in Conner Weigman. The new coach has shown he can win and is familiar with the program. And while there has been roster attrition, the remaining players from the program’s vaunted 2022 recruiting class are entering their third year.
Is there enough talent to make a run at the top of the league? Probably not. But the floor is pretty high, given Elko’s competence and the talent on hand. Plus the schedule is favorable: Texas and LSU go to College Station. My guess is 8-4 or around there.
Seven SEC teams have over-under win totals of 9.5 heading into the season. Let’s say five finish 10-2 or better, would an SEC team get left out of the Playoff with a 10-2 record just because the committee won’t want five SEC teams? If that was the case, which team is left out? — Shawn D.
Having seven 10-win teams is plausible: When I played out the schedule back in January, I finished with six 10-win teams, and Tennessee was 9-3, so all the Vols had to do in that scenario was beat Oklahoma and it would be seven in double digits.
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Now do I consider this likely? Nope. That scenario I “predicted” had LSU at 12-0, which as I wrote at the time I didn’t consider likely, but its schedule was favorable. More likely there will be upsets or at least teams losing games they shouldn’t. It’s a better bet that the standings will look something like this in the top half, using overall records rather than conference records because that’s how the CFP will decide it:
In this scenario, Texas and Georgia would get in — I’m assuming their one loss is a conference loss and both make the SEC championship — with the winner in Atlanta getting a bye into the quarterfinals and the loser probably getting the No. 5 or No. 6 seed. But for the three 10-2 teams, it’s hard to see them all getting in, although it’s possible; it would depend on what happens in the other leagues. That was the case in the four-team era. It’s not decided in a vacuum. Teams’ records and resumes alone don’t get them in or leave them out because the committee is picking a finite amount of teams.
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Georgia had basically the same seasons in 2021 and 2023 and got in the four-team field the first time because there was room, and it didn’t get in last year because there wasn’t room.
Missouri would be the 10-2 team in that scenario I’d worry most about since its schedule right now seems weaker. It doesn’t play Georgia, Texas, Ole Miss or LSU. On the other hand, Georgia, given its schedule, almost certainly can afford two losses.
But it’s hazardous to speculate about that so far out with so much uncertainty about how good teams will be this year and what other conferences look like. The one thing it feels very safe to say is that, in a conference without divisions, the two teams that make the SEC championship are shoo-ins.
Let me use this opportunity to answer, once again, the question about tiebreakers for which teams make the SEC championship: The conference hasn’t announced it yet, but every time I’ve asked, I’ve been told not to expect anything drastic: Head to head will be the first tiebreaker, then best wins (using the conference standings). There’s just a whole lot more chance for ties now, with so many teams not playing each other, and we can explore the impact of that during SEC media days when I’m sure it’ll be discussed.
Why are we not talking more about Tennessee? After the first four weeks, I believe it will be firmly in the Playoff conversation. — Lloyd T.
It could happen, but there are a lot of uncertainties: How good is Nico Iamaleava, who only has one career start? Does the offense get back to 2022 form, and can the defense maintain the 2023 form? The schedule could end up a benefit or a hindrance: The one acceptable loss appears to be the game at Georgia, but with the Alabama game being at home, that seems a must-win to make the CFP, unless the others prove to be enough quality wins: NC State in Charlotte, road games at Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky and Vanderbilt, then home against Florida, Mississippi State and two (seeming) guarantee games. Does that end up being an impressive schedule where the Vols get in 10-2 — or even 9-3 if the rest of the field is weak? It’s hard to say right now.
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The takeaway is the same for Missouri, Ole Miss and basically anyone: Making the expanded Playoff is going to be tougher than people expect. The margin for error is probably going to be small, especially in a much tougher SEC.
Most predictions have South Carolina winning five games this year. What has to improve the most for the Gamecocks to win seven or more? — Chuck G.
The offensive line. The addition of Arkansas transfer Rocket Sanders should help the running game, but someone has to block for him, and if the line isn’t better than it has been, whoever the new quarterback is will struggle. The defense also has to get better in the trenches, but Shane Beamer signed two top 50 recruits last year: edge Dylan Stewart and tackle Josiah Thompson. If they can both have an impact, that will be huge for this year and also for injecting optimism into the program’s future.
Is the Jacksonville stadium remodel not the perfect time for Georgia-Florida to go home and home permanently per Kirby Smart’s wishes? Playing at other neutral sites may pay big bucks, but it will not be the same for the fans. — Gene W.
On the contrary, with everyone preparing to need $20 million per year for revenue sharing with athletes — a number that will grow — the chances are good the game will be sold to the highest-bidding city for 2026-27 and return to Jacksonville’s renovated stadium in 2028. The schools make too much that way, and even Smart understands that.
Is there a source that publishes each school’s name, image and likeness and/or other incomes the athletes receive … ideally by school and position group? I would love to do some analysis on what that money is really buying in terms of the on-field product? — Kraig B.
What I would love for there to be such a database. So would Lane Kiffin, who bemoaned the lack of transparency in our interview recently: “(The players) also get lied to by people and told, ‘Oh, you need to go in the portal because you’ll get $500,000 at these schools because that’s what DBs are making right now in the portal.’ And people can just make up whatever they want. It’s the agents trying to push them in the portal.”
The reality is these are private deals that aren’t subject to public records laws, nor are they publicized by the agents, managers or collectives that negotiate them.
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Talk about how overrated the SEC is. Just like every conference, there are two maybe three good teams and everyone else stinks. — Mike S.
Absolutely. The SEC is wildly overrated, its brand pumped up by ESPN, rampant cheating, teams refusing to play in cold weather, low academic standards, schools spending so much money, having more fans who care, which leads to having better players, which leads to having better teams …. Ah, well never mind. Welcome Sooners and Longhorns. Best of luck.
(Top photo of Quinn Ewers: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
