College football insider: Oklahoma and Texas joining SEC in 2024 'worked out perfectly'

With Oklahoma and Texas set to join the SEC in 2024, everything is falling into place for Greg Sankey and the league. The move will take place the same year that UCLA and USC leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, ushering in a new era for college football conferences.

It also coincides with the expansion of the College Football Playoff from four to 12 teams, which Sankey was heavily involved in. The Athletic‘s Georgia beat writer Seth Emerson joined The Paul Finebaum Show on Tuesday to explain why those two factors make 2024 the perfect time for the SEC to add the Sooners and Longhorns.

“When Texas and Oklahoma joined the league, I didn’t like it,” Emerson said. “I wrote a column about a month later after the forming of the alliance. Not really criticizing the SEC, but saying some things. The more that I’ve heard about it and then you see the Big Ten go get USC and UCLA, two teams that don’t make geographic sense to join the Big Ten. You look at what Greg Sankey did with the SEC and you say, ‘He added two teams that at least make geographic sense. They make the league better as a whole probably. At least they don’t hurt it.’

“Then Sankey is part of this working group that helps form the 12-team Playoff. The road has been bumpy to get there obviously. I think it was four years ago they started working in secret and then 18 months later they announce it. But it has worked out perfectly in the end.”

Oklahoma and Texas certainly make the SEC tougher, which would be a cause for concern if not for the Playoff expansion. However, with the field set to triple in size, Emerson believes the “margin of error” will increase and it’s almost a certainty that teams with multiple losses will get in. No team with two losses has ever made the CFP in the four-team format.

“In 2024, you’re expanding your league and making it harder for everybody,” Emerson continued. “Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas, LSU. You’re making it harder to win this league and get a Playoff bid. But the same exact year, through a lot of what Greg Sankey did, you are expanding the Playoff and you’re increasing the margin for error so a Georgia or Alabama two-loss team can get in there. We’re gonna see that happen. I don’t know who it will be, but you’re gonna see two-loss — maybe even three-loss — SEC teams make the Playoff because the league is gonna be so tough.”

A team from the SEC has claimed the national championship in five of the past six seasons, including four straight years dating back to 2019. And with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma, they look in a better position than any conference in the country to increase that number.