Paul Finebaum explains why Texas, Oklahoma joining the SEC is the biggest moment in league history
Julu 1st, 2024 finally arrived and with it came the official additions of Texas and Oklahoma in the SEC. Now, amidst the celebrations in Austin and Norman, Paul Finebaum has further explained why he thinks it’s the most significant moment in the conference’s storied history.
Finebaum discussed the magnitude of the moment during an appearance on ‘McElroy and Cubelic In The Morning’ earlier today. To him, it’s so monumental because it’s the outcome of a major shift that has been on it’s way for some time now. It’s also because it’s here after being the starting point of all the realignment that we’ve seen over the past few years.
“Because it just seemed that this long, three-year journey – and everyone remembers as we were sitting in Hoover in ’21 when this story broke. It’s just an exclamation point on the fact that we were already the best league but this one just put us into a stratosphere that I think has everyone else aghast,” Finebaum explained. “I think that’s why I made that statement.”
“If you think back? I mean it’s one thing to win all these championships, which the SEC has done. But, when that story broke in July of ’21 that two of the biggest names in college football history were coming over, it just left everyone else in shock,” recalled Finebaum. “That’s what happened and what happened after that? You saw UCLA, USC then Oregon and Washington. Then what the ACC is trying to do. I really think it set everything in motion.”
The Longhorns and Sooners joining the Southeastern Conference was the first realignment domino to fall. Since then, the Big Ten added four new programs of their own, the ACC added three, and the Big 12 looks completely different as well. That’s not to mention the end of what we once knew as the Pac-12.
Finebaum knows that his statement is one that some could see as hyperbolic, especially since he said it during Sunday’s outing on The 40 Acres. Still, besides the debut of the network that he spends nearly every day on himself, he genuinely can’t think of anything more massive within the SEC.
“Yeah, I mean, there have been other moments and sometimes you do just look out at all these people, this sea of humanity and think things like that,” Finebaum admitted. “The SEC Network launch was also very important but I’m not sure, the day it launched, we really knew what it was going to be. We know what this is.”
This is a day that each of the 16 schools and fanbases have been waiting for. However, what it has also represented within college athletics as a whole is why Finebaum sees it as one that no one will soon forget.
“That’s part of the explanation of the singleness of the importance of it all,” said Finebaum.