Paul Finebuam not in favor of SEC adding Texas football early

An overarching storyline to this offseason for the Texas football program and the Oklahoma Sooners will continue to be the impending move from the Big 12 to the SEC. Texas and Oklahoma are going to leave the Big 12 for the SEC by 2025. But what no one knows is if these two schools will be able to get out of the Big 12 before 2025.

The common school of thought this offseason seems to be that the earliest that the Longhorns and Sooners could realistically leave the Big 12 for the SEC is 2024. At this point, though, it seems almost equally likely that Texas and Oklahoma will be able to leave for the SEC by 2024 or 2025.

Moreover, Paul Finebaum of the “Paul Finebaum Show” gave his take on the potential of the SEC trying to get Texas and Oklahoma into the SEC before 2025. In an appearance on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning this week, Finebaum mentioned that he doesn’t really see much benefit to the SEC trying to get Texas and Oklahoma out of the Big 12 sooner than when the media rights contract runs up in 2025.

Finebaum also notes that with all that is going on with NIL right now and the fact that there might not be much that changes in the SEC by adding these two right away, the urgency might not be there with the conference’s administration at the moment.

Paul Finebaum doesn’t see many valid reasons for the SEC to add Texas football, OU, early

To some degree, that makes sense, depending on how the SEC feels about the additional competition for NIL in their conference. But that also doesn’t feel like something that would be a huge deciding factor if the SEC does have other motivations at work to expand the conference officially.

Other factors such as the increased revenue, additional title contenders in multiple profit sports, and increased dominance in multiple sports over other power conferences, could all be valid reasons to want to get Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC as soon as possible.

It does feel like the narrative has changed here regarding the tone in which those in the SEC media are talking about the urgency of the potential move from Texas and Oklahoma to leave the Big 12 for this conference. Last offseason, the urgency felt like it was there for Texas and Oklahoma to join the mix sooner rather than later.

But how much can we really trust those in the SEC media such as Finebaum to speak the truth on this matter? Only time will tell.

If Texas and Oklahoma do stick around in the Big 12 until 2025, they’re probably going to get at least one calendar year of athletic competition against the four new additions to this conference. The new additions to the Big 12 include the BYU Cougars, Houston Cougars, UCF Knights, and Cincinnati Bearcats.