The Texas Longhorns entered the SEC and took over. The football team suffered just one regular-season loss before appearing in the conference championship game and, eventually, the College Football Playoff semifinals.
Now, with the No. 1 recruiting class of 2025 and a chalk load of star players returning for another year, the Horns and head coach Steve Sarkisian to only improve during the upcoming season.
Recently, ESPN and SEC Network analysts Peter Burns and Chris Doering discussed the state of the SEC and which team actually holds the reins.
Which football team runs the SEC?
“The SEC does not run through Georgia right now, the SEC powerhouse are the Texas Longhorns,” Burns said while talking about "signs of concern" for the Georgia Bulldogs.
The two discussed the fact that NIL money and the transfer portal have greatly affected the old way of the SEC, preventing programs from stacking rosters three players deep with eventual NFL Draft picks. Instead, those high-level players are transferring somewhere else to play immediately and get more money in their pockets while still in college.
Teams like Georgia and the Alabama Crimson Tide were built on the premise that the starter, his backup, and his backup's backup would all land in the NFL after a few years with the program. Collegiate football players don't have that same level of patience anymore.
Yet, Texas and Sarkisian have been able to bring out the big bucks, as one of the wealthier athletic departments in the nation, to pay everyone a boatload of money, even if they aren't playing every single snap of every single game.
So, players like quarterback Arch Manning are more than happy to ride the bench for a couple of years before becoming the full-time starters for the Horns. They get paid, they practice with some of the best players and coaches in the country, and they will still, eventually, get to the NFL.
Some reports this offseason have shared that the Texas athletic department is primed to spend upwards of $35-40 million on its roster; other reports have directly debunked that fact.
At the end of the day, the programs with the most money and most viewership on a national level have always garnered the most success. These days, you just have to pay for play.