Paul Finebaum evaluates the state of the SEC after Texas, Oklahoma move

The SEC has established itself as one of, if not the, top conference in college football, and the additions of Oklahoma and Texas in 2024 may elevate them as the undisputed top dog across the college football landscape.

College football analyst Paul Finebaum appeared on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning and spoke about the state of the SEC with those moves on the horizon, starting with the degree of difficulty it took to make it happen behind conference commissioner Greg Sankey.

“I think right now he’s pretty happy with where they are Greg and you talked to him so you understand that,” Finebaum said. “And I think what everyone understood watching this ordeal, and I think it was an ordeal, was how difficult this is. And yeah in today’s world, everyone wants to go ‘well in COVID we moved schedules around week to week’, well that was within a league.”

Getting prominent programs to join new, prominent conferences can’t be easy, but the SEC isn’t the only one doing so, as USC and UCLA are set to join the Big Ten in 2024 as well. Finebaum believes that the Big Ten will be making more moves in the future to add some more firepower to their conference in the future, but first, they’ll need to find a new commissioner following Kevin Warren’s departure to become the team president and chief executive officer of the Chicago Bears.

“And when you start incorporating schools into your conference with these vast agreements it makes it far more difficult. I think somebody will make a move though, and probably the Big Ten, but we don’t know who the Big Ten leader is going to be so I think once that decision is made I think we’ll watch that very closely,” Finebaum said.

As far as the SEC making any more future moves, Finebaum believes that the SEC is not in desperate need of adding any more teams to their fold. There’s no question that the addition of the Longhorns and Sooners takes the Southeastern conference to an even higher stratosphere, and one that Finebaum thinks has them in as good of a place as they could possibly be.

“I don’t think the SEC will make the first move here though, because they don’t need to, this league with Texas and Oklahoma is fantastic,” Finebaum said. “And outside of Notre Dame, which we always talk about, show me one other college program in America that would seriously effect the overall well being and value of the SEC and I’ll wait, somebody please let me know.”