Does Nick Saban believe Texas can run the SEC?
Earlier today Nick Saban picked the Texas Longhorns to play for the SEC Championship against the Georgia Bulldogs, revealing a remarkable lack of confidence in the ability of his own Alabama Crimson Tide team. That was also quite the endorsement for the Longhorns, who will be competing within the SEC for the first time in 2024.
The news today though has been abuzz with some other comments Saban made during SEC Network’s SEC Media Days coverage about the Longhorns which sounded less positive.
So which is it? Does Saban believe the Longhorns are prepared to contend for SEC Championships or not? Does he believe they’re going to be strong but simply not a consistent, dominating force? Or did the internet simply misunderstand his meaning?
Can you guess?
The context
Longtime Texas football commentator Kirk Bohls, formerly of the Austin American-Statesman and now with the Houston Chronicle, had a question for Greg Sankey during the SEC commissioner’s opening press conference.
Bohls: Texas liked to think it ran things in the Big 12. I was curious what you would state as far as your expectation of Texas’s influence and impact on the playing fields and in the boardroom?
Sankey: I actually think I just answered that, that both are now part of a conference with peer athletic programs and peer universities, so they’ll fit, and we’ll fit together, the 16.
The entire context of the question was in relation to political muscle, not football prowess. Texas had outsized impact on conference-wide decisions made by the Big 12 which was secured with the leverage the university had as a result of being the biggest brand and most important variable in media rights deals. If the Big 12 was considering decisions Texas didn’t approve of, like expanding the conference to include Group of Five programs who’d take an equal share of the revenue without adding much to the pot, the Longhorns had veto power. If Texas were to leave the league, what would happen to everyone else? So the Longhorns often got their way on important league matters.
That wildly unequal partnership couldn’t last though and ultimately Texas and Oklahoma bailed for the SEC. Bohls’ question was engendered to create a response from the commissioner about whether Texas would continue to have the loudest voice in the room in their new conference. Sankey’s prickly response pointed to the fact that things are no longer so wildly unequal. The SEC was a premier brand before including Texas and wouldn’t be afraid to disagree with Longhorn preferences on conference-wide decisions.
Everyone knew this going in.
Nick Saban’s comment was his laughing response to the idea that Texas would become the new chairmen of the boards in matters SEC. The league has too many big, powerful institutions for the Longhorns to force their will on anyone else like they could in a Big 12 where the other member institutions all counted on Texas.
He wasn’t commenting about Texas’ prospects in football in its new league, a matter about which he seems to feel the same as most everyone else. Right now, the Longhorns look like serious contenders for the 2024 SEC Championship. Beyond that, we’ll see.
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