Texas AD Chris Del Conte: Longhorns Will 'Honor' Big 12 Commitment Through 2025
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told reporters at media days Tuesday that the conference is not expected to expand past Texas and Oklahoma. When asked if the two schools would be joining before the initial July 1, 2025 date, Sankey said that those decisions are out of his control.
“That’s not up to me. That’s about the relationship between Oklahoma, Texas and the Big 12,” Sankey said. “We are focused on the addition coming July 1, 2025.”
Mere hours later, both athletic directors said on Monday that nothing had changed on a potential exit date.
"There's a lot changing around us. If that facilitates a conversation that needs to take place about an earlier departure then it does," Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said at the Texas High School Coaches' Association conference in San Antonio. "But I have said very consistently - I know my counterpart [at Texas] Chris Del Conte said the same thing, as have our presidents - that we informed the conference that we would lead after '25 and we plan on fulfilling our obligations and do the honorable thing."
Last week at Big 12 Media Days, new commissioner Brett Yormark told reporters that a "win-win scenario" for all parties involved would be for Texas and Oklahoma to leave early, thus allowing the conference to move forward with its current 12 teams. Should the two schools leave, they would be forced to pay a fine due to breaking the league's grant of media rights, which ends following the 2024 season.
"We're in the Big 12," Del Conte said. "We're going to honor our commitments. Those things are all premature."
Roughly a year ago, both schools announced their plans to depart the Big 12 in favor of the SEC. Currently, the SEC will begin its new media contract with ESPN in 2024. The payout per school is expected to be at $80 million each season.
Castiglione and Del Conte, who are close friends away from the rivalry found between the institutions, mentioned how neither was surprised by further dominoes in realignment following their departure. Most recently, USC and UCLA elected to leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten starting in 2024.
"We have been watching these changes evolve over quite a few years. Many years," Castiglione said. "We just felt like there were going to be some massive changes. Now, a year later, there's been a lot evolve. So some of it is, in a sense, consistent with what we saw over the horizon."
Following the announcement of the two schools' departure, the Big 12 elected to add BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF as replacements starting in 2023. When asked if he had any thoughts to Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy's comments on if he were the Big 12 commissioner, he wouldn't allow either school into league meetings, Del Conte sympathized with his frustration.
"You've got to wear that emotion on your sleeves," Del Conte said. "Coach Gundy is an incredible human being, a great coach, and what a program he's built at Oklahoma State. But I get it."
Texas is set to open the season at home against Louisiana-Monroe on Sept. 3.
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