Texas Football: Baylor AD throws serious shade at Horns amid SEC move

The Baylor Bears athletic director definitely made his voice heard in the matter of the Texas football program and the Oklahoma Sooners leaving the Big 12 for the SEC. Well-known Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades really tried to take a shot at the confidence and ego of Texas athletics and the university itself on Aug. 2.

Rhoades stated that “many of my colleagues around this country believe that the University of Texas created this situation because they think so highly of themselves”. And then he noted that his “humble opinion” is that he disagrees “because they felt too little of themselves”.

That is a pretty aggressive take from the Baylor athletic director, especially when there’s not much in the running based on his statement about the Longhorns and Sooners leaving the Big 12 for the SEC. The fact of the matter is that Baylor just did not prop up the Big 12 financially like Oklahoma or Texas did, especially in football.

Baylor AD Mack Rhoades doesn’t like Texas football, OU, leaving for the SEC

Baylor did do well to represent the Big 12 this year by winning the National Championship in men’s basketball. Beyond that, Baylor hasn’t done much of anything to help represent the Big 12 well in sports like football and baseball.

Despite the down years from the Longhorns, this school and the Sooners have mostly done well to traditionally support the Big 12 in essentially all major sports. Rhoades is off on the opinion that Texas “felt too little of themselves” to stick around in this conference.

This was really just the first domino to fall in a potential round of conference realignment that will greatly shift the college sports landscape. The idea of “super conferences” might be able to play out here if the Big 12 winds up completely collapsing sometime soon.

Although, this take from the Baylor athletic director definitely is the most aggressive yet of all of the administrators in the Big 12 that we’ve heard. Others have come out in opposition (or at least not in support) of Texas and Oklahoma leaving for the SEC, but most haven’t taken shots at least at one of the two schools like Rhoades did here.

Texas and Oklahoma will leave for the SEC by 2025 at the latest. There’s likely to be a big push from the Longhorns and Sooners to be able to start competing in the SEC before then, hopefully by around 2022 or 2023.