A conference shakeup: Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC

 Oklahoma and Texas moving to the SEC






It’s been about a decade since we’ve had a major college conference realignment, when Nebraska and Texas A&M (among others) left the Big 12 for the Big 10 and SEC, respectively. Now, as if the college athletics landscape didn’t need more chaos post-NIL, we’re getting another massive realignment: Texas and Oklahoma are leaving the Big 12 for the SEC. A quick summary:

  • On Friday, 7/30, both Texas and Oklahoma voted unanimously to accept their invitations to join the SEC 

  • The start date is intended for July 1, 2025 (after the current Big 12 media rights contract expires)

  • Insiders expect we may actually see this move before 2025 (maybe even as early as next year!) because who wants to get divorced but stay living with each other?

  • Massive questions now swirl around the future of the Big 12 and the remaining 8 schools


While the motivation for this move was entirely financial (read: college football), it will nonetheless have a huge impact on men’s college tennis.  Let’s discuss two of the most notable consequences:

1. Rich getting richer

The SEC has emerged over the years as a tennis power conference with consistently more depth than other conferences. The addition of Texas and Oklahoma will add to the SEC’s tennis pedigree and rankings advantage. 

Tennis Pedigree

In Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC is getting 2 of the top 6 most accomplished programs of the 2010s and beyond (other 4: USC, UVA, Wake Forest, Florida). Behind USC and UVA, the resumes of Oklahoma and Texas are arguably as good, if not better, than any other team:

  • Oklahoma: 3x NCAA Finalist (2014, 2015, 2016)

  • Texas: 2019 NCAA Champion, 2021 semi-finalist

In fact, Florida is the only team in the SEC to have matched Texas’ results during this time period. No other SEC team has made an NCAA final since Tennessee in 2010. If you thought Oklahoma and Texas were relevant to the football landscape, they’ve actually been more relevant to college tennis over the past decade. This move just elevates the SEC as a tennis powerhouse.

Rankings Advantage

The ITA rankings love the SEC. With the quick caveat that this year’s rankings were a little wonky with Covid and playing restrictions, the SEC finished the season with more schools in the ITA top 20 than the Big 12, ACC, and Big 10...combined. Here’s how the 2021 ITA top 20 team rankings finished:

Conference

# of Top 20 Schools

SEC

8

ACC

3

PAC-12

4

Big 10

1

Big 12

3

Source


A quick explanation of why the rankings love the SEC: it values wins over losses. So when you have a very deep conference with quality teams, there are lots of opportunities to get wins. The SEC teams can beat up on each other week-in and week-out, and it creates a “rising tide lifts all boats” effect. The ITA only uses your top 9 wins in the rankings prior to the NCAAs, so a loaded regular season schedule plus a conference tournament will get you to 9 good wins pretty quickly. 


The addition of Texas and Oklahoma adds more quality teams to the conference and increases win opportunities for all teams. The conclusion? An exacerbation of the SEC littering the ITA rankings. 


2. The "Abandoned 4"


Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC will cause an inevitable domino effect across all college conferences. It’s chaos right now as schools jockey for position to join other conferences and the fate of the Big 12 is in question. On one end, the remaining 8 schools could add additional schools from, say, the American Conference or, to the other extreme, the conference could disband completely. Only 4 of the remaining 8 schools even have men’s tennis programs: Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma State. I’ve lovingly dubbed these the “Abandoned 4.” If Texas, Oklahoma, and the SEC are big winners in the realignment, the “Abandoned 4” are undoubtedly losers. 


These remaining 4 schools have perennially strong tennis programs, but losing Texas and Oklahoma as conference foes will hurt them from a competitive standpoint and will hinder their ability to gain ranking points, for the same reasons mentioned previously. Additionally, this realignment throws a wrench in their recruiting pitch. If I’m a top recruit, committing right now to Baylor or TCU is a risky proposition given the conference’s uncertain future and dwindling inner-conference competition. There are almost too many unknowns surrounding the future of the conference, the level of competition of a future conference the school might join, etc., to make choosing one of the “Abandoned 4” a wise decision for future recruits.

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