O’Gara: Any question about Texas getting SEC respect came and went in Dallas

Steve Sarkisian sounded like he was blown away.

Upon Texas’ arrival to SEC Media Days, Sarkisian and the Longhorns’ crew got in a Sprinter van and received a police escort to the Omni hotel in downtown Dallas.

“It just means more? It just means more right there,” Sarkisian said. “The fact that we had a Sprinter van with a police escort to come to this was tremendous.”

Texas and Oklahoma were the story of the week in Dallas. That’s not saying that much. It’s the most significant SEC addition since it became a thing back in 1932. What said more than even a Sprinter van and a police escort was the clear respect that Texas got at its first SEC Media Days.

Georgia was the overwhelming favorite, but the media also picked Texas to earn a trip to Atlanta for the SEC Championship with 27 first-place votes. Mind you, Texas received more than twice as many first-place votes as reigning SEC champion Alabama (12), albeit a post-Nick Saban version of Alabama.

Welcome to the new age.

Well, I suppose Texas didn’t get the respect of being the SEC’s “UT.” Tennessee, not Texas, got that on the All-SEC ballot.

But what Texas got was more significant than an acknowledgment of its initials. It got 13 preseason All-SEC selections. That didn’t just outnumber Tennessee (2). It outnumbered everyone not named Georgia (15) or Alabama (16). Texas had a 13-3 advantage over Oklahoma, too.

Take that for what it is. I take it as one team has earned SEC respect and another is still fighting for it.

Oklahoma fans will understandably push back on that. After all, Texas didn’t win a Big 12 title from 2010-22 while Oklahoma won 7 conference titles. Texas just earned its first AP top-7 finish since 2009 while Oklahoma had 8 such finishes in that stretch. And as a Sooners fan would point out, OU is 11-4 vs. Texas since 2010, including last year’s thrilling victory in the Cotton Bowl.

But what Oklahoma fans can’t deny is that what Texas did in Tuscaloosa last year — handing Saban his most lopsided home loss ever at Alabama — was more impressive than any Sooners victory in recent memory. Last year, the Sooners took down No. 3 Texas, but before that, here were the matchups vs. AP top-5 teams in the Playoff era:

• 2019 vs. No. 1 LSU: L, 63-28
• 2018 vs. No. 1 Alabama: L, 45-34
• 2017 vs. No. 3 Georgia: L, 54-48
• 2017 at No. 2 Ohio State: W, 31-16
• 2016 vs. No. 3 Ohio State: L, 45-24
• 2015 vs. No. 1 Clemson: L, 37-17
• 2015 at No. 4 Baylor: W, 44-34

Yes, winning in Tuscaloosa was more impressive than winning in Columbus. Also, recency bias plays a role.

It’s hard not to be bullish on Texas when it:

• A) Beat Big 12 teams by an average of 18.4 points
• B) Handed Alabama its worst home loss of the Saban era
• C) Was top-15 in scoring offense and scoring defense
• D) Returned 67% of last year’s production
• E) All the above

It’s “E.” It’s always “E.”

And by the way, part of that returning production is preseason Heisman Trophy favorite Quinn Ewers, who had the biggest media crowd of any of the 48 SEC player representatives in Dallas.

This isn’t about some premature narrative that Texas is “back” (the fact that Sam Ehlinger said that on the heels of a 4-loss season still makes my blood boil). This is acknowledging that things change when you have a season like Texas had. If this SEC move happened after 2017, you can bet that Oklahoma would be getting no shortage of respect after it lost to Georgia in double overtime of the Playoff semifinal with Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield.

But it’s not. It’s 2024.

It’s also not 2021 anymore. As in, back when the Texas/Oklahoma move was initially reported. Unlike 3 years ago when coaches like Eli Drinkwitz took the stage, you didn’t hear SEC coaches jabbing “Horns Down” this time around. Don’t get it twisted. It was addressed. After all, it’s the SEC. If something can warrant a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct, it’s worth discussing.

(It’ll be called like a taunting penalty, so that’ll differ from how it was called in the final year of Texas’ time in the Big 12 when any use of “Horns Down” that was seen by officials was flagged.)

But also worth discussing is the mutual respect of Texas and the SEC. It wasn’t just that the event was held in the Lonestar State for the first time following Texas’ arrival. Seven times in his opening statement, Sarkisian used the word “respect.”

“As far as our transition into the Southeastern Conference, I think the key word is respect,” Sarkisian said. “We have a ton of respect for this conference. We have a ton of respect for the teams, the coaches, the players and the fans. This is the elite conference in college football, and we’re fortunate enough to be part of it.

“We won’t do anything without having a level of respect of who we play, where we’re playing them, the types of players that they have, the coaching that they have, and I think on the flip side of that, we have to go earn their respect. We’re not going to get anything in this deal. Nothing is going to be free. We’re going to have to go earn the respect of our opponents, the opposing coaches, the opposing fans, and that’s going to be kind of on the forefront of what we do.”

He’s not wrong. Respect in the SEC is earned. The SEC champion has played for a national championship in 16 of the past 18 seasons (2014 and 2023 were CFP semifinal losses). Five different SEC programs have won a national title in the 21st century.

Of course, that’s excluding Texas and Oklahoma. Including them, that’s 7 of 16 SEC programs that won it all in the 21st century, and it’s 8 of 16 if you go back to the start of the BCS era (that includes 1998 Tennessee). Time will tell if Texas can get there as a member of the SEC.

Some would say the Longhorns’ favorable Year 1 schedule feels like a Sprinter van and a police escort to the SEC Championship. Perhaps that’s playing a significant role in the preseason discussion, as well.

Whatever the case, Sarkisian has a prime opportunity to blow the SEC away in Year 1.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.