Paul Finebaum addresses timeline for Texas, Oklahoma joining the SEC

We know that Oklahoma and Texas are set to join the SEC by at least 2025 when their grants of media rights with the Big 12 expires, but could they possibly get there sooner? That is the question that has been on the minds of many ever since the Big 12 announced it would add four new members by 2023.

With this season set to be the last before that expansion, ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum believes it doesn’t make sense to keep the Sooners and Longhorns once new teams arrive. OU and Texas could buy their way out early, and Finebaum said it would be in the Big 12’s best interest to take an offer.

“I don’t see any benefit at all (of keeping them in the league),” he said on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “I know people say, ‘Well, they’re getting those games.’ But to me it’s just confusing. If you want to start anew, you start anew with the new schools next year. You don’t deal with what you’ve had. I know there’s some pettiness and there will be some gerrymandering trying to get Texas to go to BYU on a Saturday night. But I think all that’s over with. The pettiness is gone. It all depends on the new commissioner of the Big 12. I’m hoping it’s a reasonable person and they’ll say, ‘Make us an offer and we’ll take it.'”

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby is expected to step down from his role later this year, though the conference has yet to announce his replacement. Whoever it is already set to take over during one of the most important transitional periods in conference history, and keeping OU and Texas could only complicate that.

Finebaum also speculated that the SEC is in no hurry to add Oklahoma and Texas either. A lot has changed since the announcement of conference expansion last July, and now the issues of NIL, transfer portal and Playoff expansion are also on their plate. Although the SEC would certainly welcome the two teams early if the opportunity arose, it’s not as if the conference is going out of its way to make that happen.

“There’s also the flip side of that right now,” Finebaum said. “I’m not saying I’ve heard this — this is just an opinion. There’s so much going on in the SEC right now with NIL and the state of confusion with the CFP that I don’t think there’s an eagerness to get them in right away. It’s not like if you bring Texas and Oklahoma in the league next year that very much changes in the SEC. I think that’s part of it where Greg Sankey and his group are just sitting tight going, ‘We’ve got arrows aimed at us from all around. It’s entirely likely and possible that the OU-Texas deal from a year ago cost the CFP from expanding.’ So they’re just sitting back. They’ll take Oklahoma and Texas at any point, but I don’t think there’s any aggressive behavior by the SEC.”

For now, Oklahoma and Texas will prepare to enter the final season of the 10-team format that has made up the Big 12 since 2012. After that, it’s clear the Big 12 won’t look the same, but the Sooners and Longhorns’ futures are a bit more murky.