Opinion: Texas proves it's way more SEC-ready than Oklahoma in Red River rout

DALLAS — It all looked, felt and smelled the same: The stark split at the 50-yard line between crimson and burnt orange, the gluttonous stench of State Fair of Texas food being deep-fried just outside the walls of the Cotton Bowl, the fans stumbling around in various states of inebriation as their skin baked under a 93-degree October heat.

The one thing changed, though, was not merely symbolic. For Texas and Oklahoma, pulling the Roman numerals of the Big 12 off the field and replacing them with the circular seal of the Southeastern Conference has served as a thermometer for the two geographic and cultural rivals that have been meeting in this place that sits roughly halfway between their respective campuses since 1929.

Texas is SEC-ready. Oklahoma? Not so much.

That admittedly banal takeaway, of course, is a story that can be told by the one-sided score we saw here Saturday: Texas 34, Oklahoma 3.

But it’s a story that needs to be told, maybe even shouted, for how improbable it seemed a mere three years ago.

The Texas Longhorns did it. They built a monster: Probably the best team in the SEC, and maybe the whole dang country.

"Through the first half of the season I don’t see a lot of teams that have played as well in all three phases have they have,” Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said. “They’re good in the right places — quarterback, offensive line, explosive playmakers, really good defense. They’ve got a really complete team.”

It will take more months to render a verdict on just how good Texas is, but we may be able to see it forming as quickly as next week when the Longhorns host Georgia in the next Game of the Year. That should be the kind of test Oklahoma is not capable of providing. After seeing the Sooners ’ offense bumble their way through one possession after another, they don’t seem capable of much more than a middling future in the SEC that will probably end with a lot of confused Sooners wondering how the program they mostly held the upper-hand against for 2 1/2 decades blew right past them at exactly the wrong moment.

In a 125-year old rivalry that hasn't always been predictable, this role reversal is one for the books.

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Asked if it was alarming that there was suddenly this massive gap between Texas and Oklahoma, Venables repeated the question back before looking down and mumbling a “no” that didn’t seem particularly convincing.

But it should be alarming to Venables and everyone at Oklahoma, because it wasn’t so long ago that these were the questions being asked about Texas and its viability as a national power.

Rewind, if you can, to the moment you heard Texas and Oklahoma were going to join the SEC. It was the summer of 2021. Texas had bulldozed Tom Herman out of town after four seasons, just as they had with Charlie Strong after three. It had been a dozen years since the Longhorns put a team on the field that had even remotely looked like it belonged with the SEC’s big dogs.

This Texas program was going to leave the protective cocoon of the Big 12 for America’s deepest and most physically demanding conference?

Oklahoma’s move to the SEC seemed questionable for a different reason. The Sooners were coming off six consecutive years of winning the Big 12 under Bob Stoops and then Lincoln Riley, with four trips to the College Football Playoff before hitting their talent ceiling against the likes of Alabama, Georgia and LSU.

Why mess with a good thing? Why jump from a conference where your advantages over every other program were so profound that you could almost reserve an annual spot in the playoff, especially with the four-team model set to inevitably expand?

Sure, there were all kinds of reasons to go to the SEC — the money, recruiting allure, the excitement of playing high-profile programs on a regular basis — but it didn’t seem like a great deal for either one competitively.

The way it looked three years ago, both of them — but especially Texas — were going to get crushed in this league. Now we have to ask: Are the Longhorns on the verge of running this league?

It's not just remarkable, it would have been absurd to predict anything like this.

Even going all-in on Steve Sarkisian, while sensible given his success as Alabama's offensive coordinator, looked risky given how underwhelming he had been as a head coach previously at Washington and Southern California. But what other choice did Texas have?

Now, in Year 4, Sarkisian has a CFP appearance on his résumé and maybe the most reliably complete team in college football. He’s not just a better football coach than he was a decade ago, he’s backed by an administration and fan base that caught on quickly to the name, image and likeness world of recruiting, plugged some holes in the facility wars and desperately wanted to make sure that its step up in competition wasn't going to result in a historic face plant.

The result has been a collection of talent and experience that maybe only Ohio State can match.

“A lot of times on our team it's hard to tell the difference between our 1s and 2s,” Sarkisian said in a subtle flex as he downed a postgame corndog.

The Longhorns didn't even play that well on Saturday, and the gulf between Texas and Oklahoma looked wider than the stretch of Interstate 35 that separates them. Don’t begrudge the burnt orange brigade if the told-you-sos are echoing from Austin beyond Auburn and everywhere else across the South.

But it’s a told-you-so that comes with a caveat. The Red River Rivalry may always be the most important game on Texas’ schedule by virtue of history, but it’s no longer the measuring stick by virtue of that reality that now exists for both programs and the league they play in.

“We have to give this game the respect it deserves,” Sarkisian said. “This is a big game at the University of Texas. This game matters to us, and I know it matters to Oklahoma obviously so theres a lot that goes into this and we are fortunate and blessed to be part of it. But the thing that I think I’m impressed with in our guys is we enjoyed the win and the locker room was fun but its almost like our team knows there’s more work to do. Put it in the trophy case and keep grinding.”

That's the SEC mentality Sarkisian knows they’ll need. Texas has arrived in this conference as a program worthy of chanting those three letters and reduced Oklahoma to just another also-ran in a league full of them.

The Longhorns didn't just win a football game on Saturday, they separated from their rival and their past. They’re ready for this.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Texas proves it's way more SEC-ready than Oklahoma in Red River rout