A new era of the SEC begins as Texas and Oklahoma officially join the league

Today, July 1st, the Southeastern Conference officially welcomes Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC making it a 16-league team. SEC Associate Commissioner Herb Vincent says it’s been a long time coming, as Texas and OU officially accepted invitations into the SEC in July of 2021. Vincent says the league has had plenty of time to prepare for this new era of the SEC.

“It did gives us a lot of time to analyze schedules to establish rules around having the 16 teams rather than the 14 teams,” Vincent said.

One big change will be the SEC Baseball Tournament. All 16 teams will go to Hoover, Alabama for the tourney and it will be single elimination throughout. I will personally miss the double-elimination portion of the tournament.

But the baseball conference schedule will remain 30 games. The men’s basketball conference schedule also stays at 18 games, while most other major conferences play 20 league games.

Football is also staying with an eight-game league schedule, through at least 2025. Eventually, the league will go to nine games, but when? The SEC wants to keep old rivalaries in place, but they are excited about new ones resuming, like Arkansas and Texas and Texas and Texas A&M.

I think if LSU and Oklahoma play each other every year in the regular season finale that could become a great rivalry.

Divisional play is going away in both football and baseball. When you look at the football schedule this fall, it will list all 16 teams and the top two teams will play in the SEC Championship game.

An LSU-Alabama SEC Championship game is now a possibility, and the winner will receive a first-round bye in the new 12-team college football playoff. This way the SEC Championship will continue to have significance.

The 2024-25 athletic season also marks a new television deal for the Southeastern Conference as the league is no longer partners with CBS. The 2:30 Saturday afternoon games will now air on ABC.

While Texas and Oklahoma is leaving the Big-12, the Big 12 is actually growing as it will got to a 16-team league with the additions of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.

The Big Ten is adding Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington.

The PAC-12 disolves into just two schools, Oregon State and Washington State, who have reached football scheduling agreement with the Mountain West.

The ACC adds Cal, SMU and Stanford.