SEC Softball Was Already Scary, but Now It Will Be Terrifying

Addition of Texas, Oklahoma will make conference overpowered

Author:
Kent Smith
Updated:
Feb 13, 2023 1:20 AM EST
Original:
Feb 11, 2023

FRISCO, Texas – When it was announced that Texas and Oklahoma would be coming to the SEC early, most of the talk understandably centered around football and how much more dominant it will make a conference that already owns the national title game.

However, there's one area where the SEC will be even more dominant and it's not even close.

When it comes to the world of softball, the SEC already puts the rest of the country on edge.

However, adding a Top 10 program in Texas and the Thanos of college softball, Oklahoma, other than a handful of current Pac 12 schools and perhaps Florida State, there's no one outside of the SEC who can consistently threaten for the national championship going forward.

Let's put things in perspective as to how overpowered the league is going to be.

1. Eight of the last 10 national champions will have come from the 2024 iteration of the SEC.

2. The national championship is played in Oklahoma City, a short drive for back-to-back national champion Oklahoma, national runner-up Texas and back-to-back SEC champion Arkansas.

3. Nine of the 13 current SEC schools with softball programs are in the Top 25.

4. If you include future SEC schools Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC will own six of the Top 10 spots in the national polls, including No. 1 Oklahoma.

5. The 2024 line-up of SEC schools is 27-4 to start the season at a time of year where all of the schools are competing in invitationals and tournaments. One of those losses came when it was unavoidable in a Texas win over Missouri.

6. On Friday, 2024 SEC schools outscored their opponents 224-60. That's an average score of 8-2 in favor of every single conference team while taking into consideration that many of those games were stopped because of mercy rules.

7. Half of the USA Softball National Collegiate Player of the Year winners over the past 20 years were from teams that will be in the SEC in 2024.

If there's one things that can be said about the future, it's that it will almost be a relief to get to regionals after facing the brutality of the SEC schedule.