AUSTIN, Texas – Oklahoma finally got the chance to celebrate its long-awaited move to the Southeastern Conference.
As the switch from the Big 12 became official on Monday, the school finally was letting loose.
Recommended Videos
Festivities started Sunday night and stretched to events statewide on Monday. There were pep rallies in Norman on Monday afternoon. In the evening, the free “Party In The Palace" at Memorial Stadium included music, a brew garden, a basketball court, a gaming trailer, a mechanical bull and a photo booth.
“Today is a celebration,” Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said. "It’s about engaging our fans and our stakeholders. That’s what this is, rather than having a quick press conference and an announcement and moving on. We’ve tried to really bring our fan base into it because we were very, very strident about not trying to celebrate it before the official day would come.”
There was no downplaying it on Monday. The SEC logo was plastered all over Oklahoma's stadium and the campus — even painted on the sidewalks.
Not to be outdone, Texas made its long-awaited conference switch at the same time and celebrated with campus parties, carnivals, concerts and fireworks.
Now Oklahoma and Texas, rival programs that were co-founders of the Big 12 in 1996, finally are in the SEC. And their celebrations fit the conference mantra: “It Just Means More.”
At Texas, thousands poured onto campus in near 100-degree heat Sunday for a carnival and concert with “Mr. Worldwide” pop star Pitbull under the iconic campus clock tower.
The SEC Network had live programming from both campuses over the two days, and Longhorns and Sooners fans had their first chance to buy SEC-branded school merchandise.
“We’ve had the mantra, ‘It Just Means More,’ since 2016,” said SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who visited both campus parties, “Oklahoma and Texas fit that clearly.”
Texas women's basketball coach Vic Schaefer, who coached in the SEC, called the switch “a match made in heaven.”
At the Texas party, children played on bounce houses, rock walls and slides. Misters cooled their parents who waited in long lines for autographs from Longhorns coaches, photographs with the Longhorn mascot Bevo, and packed into merchandise tents for gear with the SEC logo.
“This is a day we have been building toward for years,” Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte said. “Our fans our really excited about this. You can tell by the turnout.”
It's a moment college sports in general has been building toward in the era of major realignment. The Texas and Oklahoma break from the Big 12 helped trigger myriad conference shifts with more on the way. By the first kickoff of the 2024 season, 11 so-called Power 4 programs will be in new conferences.
The Big Ten will grow to 18 teams with USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington poached from the Pac-12. The beleaguered West Coast league also lost Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Arizona State to the Big 12, and California and Stanford to the Atlantic Coast Conference. SMU leaps from the American Athletic Conference to the ACC on Monday as well.
As for Oklahoma and Texas, they originally planned to join the SEC in 2025, but ultimately reached a financial deal with the Big 12 for an early exit. And they leave with a whole lot of hardware.
Between them, the Sooners (14) and Longhorns (four) won 18 Big 12 football titles in 25 years, with Texas winning the crown last season for the first time since 2009.
In its final year in the league, Texas won 15 league regular season or tournament championships across all sports, and national titles in volleyball and rowing. Oklahoma capped its final season with its dominant softball program winning its fourth consecutive national title in May. The Sooners beat Texas in the final.
“Texas brings more tradition, more talent, more passion and more fight,” to the SEC, the school said on its athletics website.
All that winning will be much more difficult to duplicate in the SEC. Oklahoma opens its first SEC football schedule at home against Tennessee on Sept. 21. The Longhorns debut at Mississippi State on Sept. 28.
Since the start of the College Football Playoff in 2014, SEC schools have won the championship six times.
Texas (2005) and Oklahoma (2000) were the only two schools to win national titles in football while in the Big 12.
Some traditional rivalries will be stitched back together, and some torn apart.
The Texas-Texas A&M rivalry is reborn. It had been on hiatus since A&M left the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012. Oklahoma's Bedlam rivalry with Oklahoma State is ruptured.
Rey Torres, a former Longhorns walk-on defensive back who was a letterman by his final season of 1984 and season-ticket holder ever since, said he initially had “mixed emotions” about leaving the Big 12. He and his wife Debi posed for photos in front of the Longhorn marching band's giant “Big Bertha” drum.
“I loved it when the Aggies left,” the Big 12, Torres laughed. “But we're excited about the SEC. It's like the best conference in college football.”
And that's the main thing to be excited about, said Gage Sisco, who brought his 4-year daughter Harper to the Texas party. He held her in his arms while flashing the “Hook'Em Horns” hand sign in a photo in front of a giant “SEC: It Just Means More” sign.
“This is something we've been wanting since the Aggies moved,” Sisco said. “Now we can prove Texas can play with the big boys.”
Texas spiced things up with Texas A&M last week when it poached Aggies baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle to Austin. At his introductory news conference, Schlossnagle warned Longhorns fans that the SEC is the “major leagues” of college baseball. The league has won the past five national championships.
Oklahoma's celebration started Sunday night with a “Race to the SEC” 5k race through the heart of campus, with midnight sales of SEC merchandise and fireworks.
Monday morning, former Sooners coach Barry Switzer co-hosted a celebration breakfast in Tulsa.
Oklahoma president Joseph Harroz said the move will improve the experience for students and enhance the school athletically and academically.
“We want our students to not just come here and participate, we want them to feel like they belong," Harroz said. “Intercollegiate athletics provides that. And today, we celebrate a move to the SEC that ensures we accomplish both of those goals. It puts us with the best. It puts us with the best.”
___
Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas.
___
AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports