Texas is upon the SEC, or the SEC is upon Texas, or the time of Texas and the SEC allying with one another is upon us all. We don’t know which of those things it is. I’m not sure the first two really make sense.
With a new conference comes new friends, enemies, and frenemies. We categorize each SEC school, ranking them from whom we expect to be Texas’s best friend to whom we expect to be Texas’s most bitter enemy in this new South by Southeast:
15. Texas A&M: Enemy
Starting with the easy one.
14. Tennessee: Enemy
Tennessee earned consideration for Texas’s biggest SEC enemy, but I don’t think UT–A&M relations are going to go the way of UT–OU anytime soon. Maybe the door will open in the long run, but not while A&M’s inferiority complex rages on. Either A&M goes bankrupt and closes its doors, A&M starts playing well enough to earn Texas’s begrudging respect, or Tennessee remains second fiddle in the hate wars.
Speaking of the Volunteers:
You know who else has an inferiority complex? You know who’s weirdly obsessed with Texas? You know who else struggles to get along with just about everyone?
Now that Tennessee’s getting good at sports, it’s all only going to get nastier. And that’s without even considering the potential that Jim Schlossnagle and Tony Vitello have a falling out which results in the best brawl in the history of college baseball.
13. Arkansas: Enemy
I don’t think Texas will care enough about the old rivalry to hate Arkansas. That, however, is only one half of the equation.
12. Auburn: Enemy
Texas will get a great first impression of Auburn. Then, they’ll start getting texts from their bank and notice that their credit cards are missing from their wallet while fancy watches magically accumulate all the way up Bruce Pearl’s arm.
11. Alabama: Enemy
It’ll start fine, but there’s a good chance Nick Saban was the only thing keeping Tuscaloosa on the rails. Who’s the elder statesman now? Nate Oats, motherfuckers. You think a con man from small-town Wisconsin can keep the Crimson Tide in check? You think his new buddy from small-town South Dakota is going to help? We are 18 months away from the Department of State designating Alabama fans as a state sponsor of terrorism. The Troubles will have nothing on the impending Bama–Auburn civil war.
Of course, this has nothing to do with Texas. It just won’t be pleasant to view from afar.
10. Kentucky: Frenemy
Texas will meet Kentucky, have a good laugh about the Mark Stoops/A&M shenanigans, then have nothing else to talk about. Not one thing.
9. LSU: Frenemy
I don’t know that LSU has enemies. I think LSU just has friends who don’t know they’re LSU’s friends yet. I do think LSU is going to get on Texas’s nerves, though, and the real possibility that Brian Kelly beats Texas in its first SEC Championship is terrifying. There are few worse bastards to get beaten by than Brian Kelly. It’d be one thing if he was a cheater. Losing to Hugh Freeze is infuriating but ultimately tolerable. Losing to Brian Kelly is like losing to a personal injury lawyer after someone tripped on a crack in your driveway.
8. Mississippi State: Neighbor
It’s not that Mississippi State and Texas won’t get along. It’s that Texas is going to be a little alarmed by Mississippi State. Some Longhorn people will go to Starkville when they play next fall, and those Longhorn people will walk away confused and troubled. They’ll come home with a general sense of unease. They’ll go back to church for a few weeks, trying to reconcile what they’ve seen with their previous vision of the world. They will never return to Starkville, but the experience will haunt them until their dying breath.
7. Missouri: Missouri
To be honest, I couldn’t remember Mizzou when I first made this list. It took me a minute to figure out where the 16th team went. I suspect Texas will have the same experience.
6. South Carolina: Friend?
Sure!
5. Georgia: Frenemy
There are two ways Texas and Georgia’s relationship can go.
The first possibility is that a Georgia football player runs over 17 Texas undergraduates after crashing through a Dirty Sixth barricade the night before the Bulldogs play at DKR. How did he get the car? There is no way to know. Keeping Georgia players out of motor vehicles is like keeping ants out of your yard.
The second possibility is that at some point at an SEC media day, Chris Del Conte and Georgia’s AD find each other alone at the hotel bar, and after a period of silence, say, at the same time…
“So. Tennessee.”
4. Florida: Friend
Texas and Florida are like Texas and Georgia: Far enough apart to not instinctively hate each other, genteel enough for Texas to not be actively alarmed. Where Florida fits even better with Texas is that Florida isn’t an active threat in football and Florida shares Texas’s nostalgia for the mid to late 2000’s.
3. Oklahoma: Friend
Besties stick together. They even share that cute golden hat.
2. Vanderbilt: Friend
Previously, the best public SEC school was probably Florida. Florida, though, is too used to bullying Vanderbilt to be Vanderbilt’s friend. Texas should understand Vanderbilt better, and that sets Vanderbilt up to become Texas’s lackey. This is like when the cool new kid in the movie recognizes that they can use the nerd to hack into the school’s mainframe and change their grades.
1. Ole Miss: Friend
Good but not a threat. QB-whispering coach with Saban ties. Good Greek scene. Texas and Ole Miss will get along. Especially right now, while neither remembers that basketball exists.
Quick(er) Hitters
Olympic medalists:
- Scottie Scheffler: Gold, golf
- Ryan Crouser: Gold, shot put
- Hubert Kos: Gold, 200-meter backstroke (Hungary)
- Julien Alfred: Gold, 100-meter dash (Saint Lucia)
- Carson Foster, Luke Hobson, Drew Kibler: Silver, 4x200m freestyle relay
- Erin Gemmell: Silver, 4x200m freestyle relay
- Alfred: Silver, 200-meter dash (Saint Lucia)
- Leo Neugebauer: Silver, decathlon (Germany)
- Foster: Bronze, 400-meter individual medley
- Hobson: Bronze, 200-meter freestyle and also hairline
- Caspar Corbeau: Bronze, 200-meter breaststroke (Netherlands)
I think that’s all of them so far. Bob Bowman also gets some credit for training Léon Marchand, but I don’t think they give coaches Olympic medals in individual events. We should try to change that. A lot of internationals training in the U.S.
Other things that have happened since we last spoke…
- In sad news, Steve and Loreal Sarkisian announced they’re filing for divorce, citing difficulty balancing their marriage with their respective careers. Obviously not the biggest thing here, but this is a bummer for Texas football. Mrs. Sark had been a great ambassador the last few years. It does, however, explain why Mr. Sark was alone in that picture from Pole Assassin’s wedding.
- In happier news, Sarkisian picked up a commitment from Josiah Sharma, a composite four-star defensive lineman from California the Longhorns flipped from Oregon. That brings the class of 2025 to 16 names. Long way to go.
