Texas, Oklahoma Coming Soon, But Then What?

Arkansas could benefit from next most logical additions should SEC, Big Ten continue raid of Big 12

FRISCO, Texas – Now that Texas and Oklahoma are headed to the SEC potentially as early as 2024, the question everyone should be asking is simple.

Who's next?

The most logical answer is staring the league right in the face, quite literally. 

TCU.

The Horned Frogs give the SEC a firm foothold in the Dallas market and would lock down all four of the major TV markets in Texas for good. 

Now is the best time to strike. The Horned Frogs are a media darling in football and have become quite the landing pad for elite SEC transfers tired of the old wait until it's your turn system that is depriving them of NIL money and playing time in places like Alabama.

They're currently a Top 25 team in basketball and finished as a Top 25 baseball team last spring as well.

It's best to nab them while everything is rolling down in Ft. Worth so an SEC announcement can propel their market value even higher. Accepting such an invite would make them top dollar Frogs in TV negotiations.

It would also give SEC teams a quality travel destination. The SEC is known for a lot of things, but getting to an opponent's venue isn't exactly one of them. 

Flying into DFW and making the short 27-mile drive to TCU's campus is a dream for SEC teams. 

Not only is it an easy trip, it's a great trip for fans and recruiting. The stadium is beautiful and situated in a great part of Forth Worth.

If you have a spouse who loves to travel, but isn't into football, she and any kids who might want to tag along but not go to the game can spend a day at the Fort Worth Zoo [literally the only zoo experience I have ever enjoyed] or make the short jaunt to Arlington for a day at Six Flags. 

Then you can meet up for dinner in Sundance Square and catch a film at the Coyote Drive-in with the Fort Worth skyline directly behind your movie just across the tiny Trinity River.

Of course the SEC always likes to order its new members in pairs, so you might as well throw in Oklahoma State. While not as easy to get to as TCU, this is a fan base tailor made for the SEC and as fun to get annoyed at as the cowbell ringers in Starkville and the mustard throwers up in Knoxville.

Just ask Arkansas fans how fun a tight shootout can be with the Cowboys.

While OK State brings only modest growth in viewership, they do bring quality in all three major sports, plus one other highly valuable commodity that it shares with TCU.

Cheap travel for non-revenue sports. 

I'll save you the time looking up how many miles it is from Gainesville, Florida to Stillwater. It's 1,176 miles and it doesn't matter. Florida will travel to Stillwater even less than it already travels to Fayetteville, which has only happened twice in nearly 20 years in football.

The Razorbacks head to The Swamp next season for the second consecutive time in the series and may not get a return game once everything is shuffled around to accommodate Texas and Oklahoma should they arrive a year early.

As for Oklahoma State and TCU, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and even Ole Miss all clock in at around 500 miles or less. Add in LSU and Mississippi State and you're looking at eight teams within roughly 650 miles of one another at the most.

That's good for the bottom line while making the conference as a whole better.

Some might think it a bit unkind to the Big 12 to steal what will be the newly crowned tentpole programs once Oklahoma and Texas are gone, but that conference is already well on its way to becoming "Group of Five" status. 

Does anyone think the Big Ten isn't going to annex Kansas and Kansas State soon to help fill in gaps between the rest of the conference and Los Angeles? 

Penn State isn't flying out to L.A. on the regular. That's a problem for the Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa to deal with. Slipping in short rides to Kansas while adding quality on the basketball side is a nice way to smooth things over.

It's borderline impossible to imagine those two plus Oregon and either Utah or Stanford not getting sucked in at some point soon.

The two super conferences will fight over a handful of other teams, but this is the path forward.

The breadcrumbs are pretty easy to follow. 

We're headed toward the SEC and Big Ten following the mold of the AFC and NFC where the two host their own playoffs and have the resulting champions play each other in a college football Super Bowl game. 

The 12-team playoff is just another step toward getting people used to an idea that will eventually lead to the biggest financial payoff in all of college sports. 

There's a good chance that if it's going to happen, that ball starts rolling this weekend if it hasn't already.

After all, you never know who SEC commissioner Greg Sankey might "bump" into at the TCU-Georgia national championship game.

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