'It just means more': Why SEC added Texas, Oklahoma in historic realignment move

Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC today as college football realignment becomes official. Greg Sankey explains what made the Longhorns and Sooners so attractive.

Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC as a historic wave of college football realignment becomes official today. / Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC on the first day of July as arguably the most consequential college football realignment move in recent memory, and commissioner Greg Sankey says both schools are perfect fits for the identity and passion of the conference.

And while "It Just Means More" was a catchphrase created for an SEC commercial years ago, it was precisely that philosophy that made OU and Texas fit so well.

"It goes back to an athletic directors' conversation," Sankey said on SEC Network recently.

"Scott Stricklin at Florida, we were talking generally about potential new members years ago and he said, 'You need to apply the It Just Means More test,'" when considering expansion candidates.

Sankey added: "So, on a campus and in an athletic department, a university, does what they do as an athletic program meet that kind of expectation that we have? Obviously, [Oklahoma and Texas] do."

In football, Texas and Oklahoma are proven winners and blue bloods. Between them, the rivals have won 11 national championships in the sport and produced nine Heisman Trophy winners.

They also play one of college football's most intense rivalries every year, the Red River Shootout at the Cotton Bowl near Dallas, that will draw even more attention to the SEC.

"It's interesting to travel the country and I hear from fans of the University of Texas and University of Oklahoma about their excitement," Sankey said.

"I was on an airplane in Syracuse, New York, two weeks ago with a Gator fan and a Georgia fan saying that they're excited about the future because they both play Texas this year. So I think that's a reflection of meeting the excitement test."

Texas plays some of the SEC's better conference games this season, hosting Georgia to Austin on Oct. 19 and Florida on Nov. 9, while reuniting with historic rivals Arkansas on Nov. 16 and Texas A&M for the first time in more than a decade, in the season finale.

Oklahoma welcomes Tennessee and travels to Auburn in late September before road games at Ole Miss and Missouri, and closes out at home against Alabama and on the road to LSU.

Those are tough statement games for the conference's newest members, but it's a challenge they both accepted, an attitude that, in Sankey's view, makes them ideal members of the SEC.

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