The end times are upon us

As legendary Saints radio play-by-play man famously called in 2009 “Hell has frozen over. Pigs have flown.”
The Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns are seemingly SEC-bound as of 2025.
Blink if you’re as shocked as I am.
This feels like one of those wacky fever dreams previously only possible when you fired up your PlayStation and played the NCAA football franchise.
I played. For way too many hours over the years. And not even I was brazen enough to bring the Sooners and Longhorns over to the crown jewel of college football.
So, yes, count me among the many who are looking at this and wondering “Well how the heck did this happen?”
Well, as of my writing this column, it hasn’t really happened yet. Actually, they sort of have just decided they don’t want to be part of the Big XII anymore. They took their ball and went home.
On top of that, they’ve asked the powers-that-be of the SEC if they could join their party. In other words, they didn’t get invited to the party. They kinda invited themselves.
They did so for very good reason. It’s hard to ignore that even the 10th or 11th best team in the conference, in any given year that can be a Missouri, Kentucky, South Carolina or Arkansas, regularly ends recruiting season with a class that ranks among the top-30 nationally.
While Texas and OU regularly punch about that weight, it obviously sees the benefit of inviting itself to the party.
It’s like the tennis team crashing the football team’s party. Yeah, they’re still athletes. Really good ones too. But no one is mistaking the Big XII for the SEC.
So in terms of the self-invite, it’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off.
To put it frankly, the Southeastern Conference would be foolish to not open its doors to the Longhorns and Sooners.
First, in an ever-expanding national footprint known as college football, inviting Texas and OU to the grown-ups table would mean welcoming in the 1st and 8th-highest grossing football programs in college football as of 2018.
The highest earner in the SEC as of 2018? Georgia, who finished second in revenue in 2018 raking in $123 million.
That was “only” $33 million behind Texas’ $156 million.
Alabama may be swimming in championships. But it isn’t Scrooge McDuck-ing in seas of money like Texas and OU.
And money talks. Say what you would about “culture fits” and “they won’t be welcomed by fan bases as real SEC teams” or whatever argument you’d like to make.
The bottom line is that the check will clear, the rest of the league will get more money as well as more exposure.
Winner: Southeastern Conference.
Now, for Texas and OU, remember the sea of money we talked about?
By associating itself with the SEC, that gulf becomes an ocean for both aspiring schools.
Especially Texas, who as previously mentioned was already the Daddy Warbucks of college football.
In joining the SEC, the rich would get much richer, have access to recruits that wouldn’t give them a second look previously and in an added bonus for Texas it would get to twist the knife in the heart of Texas A&M. Who, for a second there, thought it had won the battle against big brother.
In the end, it makes too much sense for this marriage not to come together.