The Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners will reportedly leave the Big 12 and join the Southeastern Conference, barring any setbacks, according to a report from Chip Brown of 247Sports.
The move comes less than 48 hours after the Houston Chronicle reported interest of the Longhorns and Sooners in moving to the SEC.
“In this changing landscape of college athletics, this is what’s best (for Texas and Oklahoma),” a source told Brown.
Brown also indicated that the Longhorns and Sooners, are prepared to wait until the current grant of rights agreement, which is slated to run until 2025, expires.
Should the two schools elect to move earlier, they would be forced to forgo their remaining Big 12 television revenue of $160 million.
However, that does not mean the move will not happen sooner.
The circus began at SEC Media Days on Wednesday morning, when the Houston Chronicle broke the initial story about the Longhorns and Sooners contacting the SEC about a potential move.
Then, on Thursday morning, the two schools informed the Big 12 of their intentions not to renew their media contracts with the conference, which were set to expire in 2025.
Just hours later, the Big 12 powerhouses took it one step further, opting to skip a Big 12 conference call on Thursday night, which was meant to discuss the potential move.
The reported move, which would increase the size of the SEC from 14 to 16 teams, would also reunite the Longhorns and the Sooners with former Big 12 foes Texas A&M and Missouri, who left to join the SEC after the 2011 season.
On the SEC front, the only things standing in the way were those former Big 12 members, Texas A&M and Missouri, who are the only schools that appear to be attempting to block the move.
As of now, however, it appears that the attempts from those two schools to block the move will be in vain, and the Longhorns' and Sooners' futures will lie in the southeast.
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