These are exhilarating times for the football programs at Oklahoma and Texas. While the schools patiently wait to be showered with millions in SEC TV money, the Sooners sit at No. 6 in the current AP rankings, top dogs in the Big 12 once more. At No. 22, Texas isn’t so much licking its wounds from that one-point loss to Alabama as it is quietly celebrating that the school is suddenly as wealthy in quarterback futures as it is in Permian Basin crude.
A word of warning to both, not so much for the 2022 season but beyond: Nebraska.
I’m sure the younger generation of fans of either the Sooners or Longhorns has no fear of suffering a Huskers-like collapse. They do not realize what Nebraska represented for so many years in college football.
Right now we just see a program in complete disrepair. Interim coach Mickey Joseph fired the defensive coordinator this week following a 49-14 humbling by the Sooners. This came one week after the athletic director fired head coach Scott Frost following a 45-42 loss at home to Georgia Southern. The school could have saved $7.5 million by waiting three weeks to fire Frost but chose to pull the plug anyway.
What does any of this mean for Texas or Oklahoma?
Only that between 1970 and 1999 Nebraska won three national championships outright and laid partial claim to two others. This was in the days of polls handing out titles, but no one accused Nebraska of not earning them. The Cornhuskers produced three Heisman winners and 43 conference champions. The Big Eight was essentially a battle of Oklahoma vs. Nebraska for decades. After joining the Big 12 following the collapse of the SWC, Nebraska represented the North in six of the 15 championship games when the conference actually had 12 teams and two divisions.
Then the Huskers went after that Big Ten money. No one really faults these schools in their pursuit of extra millions even if it destroys geographical rivalries and feels a bit on the unseemly side. In the Big Ten, Nebraska played in one conference championship a decade ago (losing to Wisconsin 70-31), has never lost fewer than four games and hasn’t finished at .500 or been to even a lower-tier bowl game since 2016.
Yes, the money is pouring in but $15 million just sailed out the window to get rid of Frost. And no matter how equipped they might appear to be (Sooners more than Longhorns based on recent history), what Texas and Oklahoma are about to face is certainly more daunting than Big Ten play.
As I mentioned, the Sooners are the top-ranked Big 12 team. If they were in the SEC, they would be third and searching for a way to prevent another Georgia-Alabama title game. At 22, the Longhorns are fourth among Big 12 clubs but would be ninth — leading the bottom half — if the SEC had completed its expansion to 16 teams. Texas would be one spot ahead of its longtime rival from College Station, and if you’re old enough to remember Aggies and Longhorns battling on Thanksgiving for SWC crowns and Cotton Bowl rights, how does an all-expenses trip to the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl sound for a prize?
While I’m not a fan of the college football upheaval that’s going to eventually lay waste to either the Pac-12 or the Big 12, I’m not unfamiliar with sports diluting their product while chasing network billions. I get that. But it feels like some who embrace it haven’t really done the math when it comes to determining how many schools are bound to see their programs diminished in the process.
UCLA in the Big Ten? You think the Bruins are pushing around Ohio State, Penn State or Michigan anytime soon?
One can argue that, beyond helping fund all those stadium and facility upgrades, the Aggies’ journey to the SEC has been a very mixed blessing. The school has had two top-10 finishes in the polls but has not sniffed an SEC championship game. When my daughter was at Mizzou, the students dragged a goalpost through the streets of Columbia (she was not part of this, officers!) after beating No. 1-ranked Oklahoma. Those scenes have not been repeated in the SEC.
There is only one Vanderbilt on anyone’s SEC schedule, I’m afraid, and if you remember when Kentucky was solely a basketball school or Arkansas was having its gridiron issues, check out this week’s top 10.
I realize Texas said goodbye to Rice and SMU on the schedule a generation ago. And I’m not here to proclaim that the Sooners and Longhorns will never enjoy their moment in the SEC sun. It’s just that the competition for that spotlight is fierce, well beyond anything these schools have ever experienced.
You think you won’t ever be the next Nebraska to fall apart. But you base that on your past, and a rich, winning history isn’t doing a thing for the Huskers these days.
