Texas, Oklahoma Sticking to 2025 Still Makes News Now

Apparently when everybody sticks to announced schedule that's news these days

Author:
Andy Hodges
Updated:
Oct 19, 2022 1:10 AM EDT
Original:
Oct 18, 2022

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — With football season at the midway point, now we may be just clutching at straws.

Arkansas has an off week and the annual Fall World Series is coming to an end over at Baum-Walker Stadium so we can sort of look around for other stuff.

Enter the SEC expansion, which was announced as happening starting with the 2025 football season, so we're only about 2.5 seasons from that happening.

Razorback fans have an interest because both Texas and Oklahoma will be on the schedules in less than three years now.

Brett Yormark-Big 12 MD — Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark talks with the media during the Big 12 Media Day at AT&T Stadium. (Jerome Miron / USA TODAY Sports)

But at the Big 12 Tip-Off this week, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark actually made news by staying with the announced plan.

"They’ve committed themselves in advance of me getting here and they’ve reiterated that commitment," he told the Tulsa World, according to a story at College Football HQ on Tuesday.

It's basically the same thing SEC commissioner Greg Sankey tells anybody that will ask. Nobody has asked if there are any conversations going on in the background about moving that timeline up.

Based on prior history, Yormark would probably be the last person to find out before it went public unless he had to read about it.

For now, though, everybody is sticking to the script.

"My relationship with both Texas and Oklahoma is very, very strong," Yormark said. "They are full members and we’re looking forward to working with them."

Bevo-Spring Game — Longhorns mascot Bevo at Texas' spring game in Austin in April. (Aaron E. Martinez / USA TODAY Sports)

Which really says nothing new. Everybody publicly says they expect the Sooners and Longhorns to follow the 2025 plan.

But there are media rights negotiating conversations going on now from the Big 12, according to a story by the Associated Press last week.

The Big 12 is in transition as it prepares for Cincinnati, BYU, Houston and Central Florida to join next year and for Texas and Oklahoma to depart by 2025. The conference is likely to be 14 teams for at least one season. It currently has 10 schools.

It does create an interesting scheduling problem for the Big 12, especially with both Texas and OU having already announced schedules.

"(The conference) is not a free agent," Yormark told the AP. "I can't go out there and talk to an Amazon or an Apple or CBS. But in a world that's changing, why don't we explore an early conversation which could, maybe, lead to a negotiation.

"I can tell you that we've had meaningful conversations for the last three-plus weeks, and we'll see where they go."

Remember that quote if something changes with that whole script.

"If we can't get to a deal, then the fallback is 16 months from now," Yormark said.

Sooner Schooner-Spring — The Sooner Schooner at Oklahoma's spring game in April. (Kevin Jairaj / USA TODAY Sports)

To save you some calendar calculations, that's the start of the 2024 calendar year. Probably, that is the lead time on these deals.

Again, though, it could be a cover to negotiations we probably won't even hear about until somebody does a streaming mini-series a decade or so down the road.

If something changes with league expansion, though, at least we might have an idea when they started talking.

There is a cover story already in place.