The SEC spectacle is over and also just beginning
A party three years in the making turned into a celebration the University of Texas campus may have never seen the likes of in the month of June. Thousands and thousands of people, not just Texas Longhorns fans but party-goers there for the free event and Pitbull concert, packed onto the South Mall on Sunday to celebrate UT’s final hours as members of the Big 12 and the beginning of a new era in the Southeastern Conference.
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The whole kit and kaboodle was put together by UT System Board of Regents chairman Kevin Eltife, UT president Jay Hartzell, Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, and the SEC Network. From a Bevo Blvd. setup on East 21st St., to SEC banners hanging off of buildings in the Six Pack, a sweltering swarm of fans joined to mark Texas’ involvement in the most recent storm of realignment.
Head coaches like Steve Sarkisian, Jim Schlossnagle, and others were present. Former stars like Jamaal Charles and Marquise Goodwin made their way to the SEC Network stage. Fans could sit just north of Littlefield Fountain and soak up everything Laura Rutledge, Paul Finebaum, Peter Burns and company cared to offer on the channel.
What did Finebaum have to say about UT and OU joining the league? “I think this is the single biggest moment in the history of the league,” he said.
To mark the occasion, Hartzell, Eltife, Del Conte, and Sankey signaled the end of one part of the celebration and the start of the next with a glitzy fireworks show around a UT Tower illuminated with the letters “S-E-C.” Finally, Pitbull performed in front of thousands who may have shown up to the 40 Acres just to see him.
It was a summer party not usually seen on campus, a spectacle that’s sure to be the first of of many fantastic memories in a new league.
But that spectacle is over, and a new one awaits on the fields and courts of play. The Longhorns are in the SEC as of midnight on Monday, and as a result are taking the spotlight along with the University of Oklahoma and 14 other institutions on the grandest stage in college sports.
UT’s first athletic competition in the fall as a member of the SEC will be an August 15 match between Angela Kelly‘s soccer program and the Houston Cougars. The first football game where the Longhorns will have a SEC patch on their jerseys is in 61 days. UT’s inaugural SEC conference games arrives on September 28, when the Mississippi State Bulldogs travel to Austin.
The Red River Shootout will be a conference game, as it has been since 1996. But now, it’ll be a SEC game. That’s something that only adds not just to the tradition of the historic rivalry but also arguably adds attention to a game often considered one of the best in the sport.
Texas is playing Georgia in a conference game. Think that one will be a spectacle? Check hotel prices, if there are any rooms left. Formula 1 will be in town the same weekend. That three-day stretch alone might cause a spike the Austin metroplex’s GDP.
The Longhorns have the rest of their conference slate, including the return of rivalries with Arkansas and Texas A&M as league games, to look forward to. But there are other entertaining aspects to the Longhorns joining the SEC. The conference provides football national championship contenders on a yearly basis, and whoever wins the league stands a solid chance of finishing the season as the No. 1 team.
In previous years, Texas would watch games like Alabama versus Tennessee from a distance, only as interested as much as it related to the chase for places in the Bowl Championship Series or College Football Playoff. Now, those games have a direct effect on Texas to where any SEC conference game is must-see television not just for half the country, but also for Longhorns fans.
The same applies across all sports. Men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, volleyball, track, tennis, softball, and everything else will be in a competition viewed often as being near the highest quality in the country, if not at the top of the heap itself.
Sunday night served as a celebration, and a gaudy one at that, of Texas making a move that secured its place among the top competitors in intercollegiate athletics.
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The next step for Texas? Battling those competitors in events that also are liable to be spectacles themselves.
