Change is in the air. Never was that more evident than seeing Texas football head coach Steve Sarkisian standing in front of the SEC logo during the conference spring meetings in Destin, Florida.
“Change is inevitable,” Sarkisian said philosophically. “We have to change with the change.”
Sark pointed out that he has dealt with nothing but change throughout his entire Texas tenure.
“From the moment I got this job at Texas, we were still almost operating under the old ways,” said Sarkisian. “And here comes the transfer portal, here comes NIL, here comes conference realignment now here comes a new settlement, now there's talk of potential roster size being reduced. But through it all, you have to adapt. If we don't adapt, we aren't going to be here.”
Sark has adapted well, building up the Longhorns into College Football Playoff contenders last season and amongst the favorites to win the SEC conference title in year one of the league.
SEC TITLE ODDS:
Georgia +185
Texas +310
Ole Miss +650
Alabama +950
LSU +1000
Tennessee +1100
Missouri +1500
Texas A&M +2000
Oklahoma +4000
Auburn +5000
Kentucky +9000
South Carolina +10000
Florida +12000
Arkansas +20000
Mississippi State +30000
Vanderbilt +50000
Source: Fanduel
Georgia not only enters the season as the odds-on favorite for the SEC championship, it’s the favorites to win it all.
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP ODDS:
Georgia +300
Ohio State +440
Texas +800
Oregon +850
Alabama +1400
Source: FanDuel
Georgia is the only team on Texas’s schedule favored to beat the Longhorns (from the early lines). By the way, how the same company can have Ole Miss with better odds to win the SEC than Alabama, but Bama with better odds to win the national championship, is just one of the many mysteries surrounding sports gambling to me.
Sports gambling may not be in my wheelhouse, but it is becoming more and more ubiquitous in the world of sports.
Now, the SEC is, if not dipping its toes in the gambling pool, at least adding the chlorine to make sure the pool is safe to swim in.
The NFL issues weekly injury reports in order to prevent gamblers from gaining inside knowledge about injured players.
The SEC is now considering doing the same thing.
"We are going to have a discussion about student-athlete availability reporting," SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told reporters before the conference’s spring meetings. "That doesn't mean there's going to be a decision. In fact, you should not expect a decision. But you should expect a discussion."
As with all of the seismic changes we’ve seen in the last few years surrounding college sports, it was a Supreme Court case which (surprise, surprise) the NCAA lost which opened the door to widespread gambling.
In Murphy vs. NCAA, the court sided with New Jersey Governor Phil Muphy who was seeking to have the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act overturned. The ruling allowed states to set their own gambling laws. Since the 2018 ruling, 38 states (not including Texas) and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing people to bet on sports in those states (with Oklahoma and Missouri considering legislation to make it legal in those states as well).
Sports betting is here to stay and it will only grow in popularity.
Given that fact – it is high time that sports conferences take steps to try to protect the integrity of the game.
Coaches like to hold that kind of information very close to their chest. But in the age of social media, it’s getting harder and harder to keep information private. Providing injury reports not only creates a more even playing field for the gamblers, but it also protects the players from having unscrupulous gamblers offering them money for information
Steve Sarkisian likes to keep player injury information close to his chest. He famously kept it quiet that Xavier Worthy was playing most of his sophomore season with a broken hand.
(Side rant here – but I still don’t understand how keeping Worthy’s hand injury quiet helped the Longhorns. I don’t see how a defense could target Worthy in any way if they knew that information. And, in fact, not disclosing it hurt Worthy because he became known as a player who drops passes. We heard it a lot throughout that season and we heard it again this spring as Worthy went through the draft process. Side rant over.)
But despite Sarkisian’s reticence to let the world in on the health status of his players, the coach says he is ready to roll with the change if it is implemented.
“My biggest thing is this, as long as we're all playing by the same rules, it just is what it is,” Sarkisian said. “So I try not to spend a lot of time complaining. I'm more solution-oriented than I am pointing out the problem with it. Ok, so these are the rules, this is what it is, how do we best navigate through this to put ourselves in the best position to have success?"
Sark even offered a suggestion on how to ensure that every coach is playing by the same rules and complying with the injury report obligations.
"Fine us,” Sarkisian said. “That's what they do in the NFL. I'm a big believer in this. The NFL has figured a lot of this stuff out already, they've already had to live through a lot of these things that have already occurred. So we don't have to try to recreate the wheel so much. If I try to game the system and I don't report a guy and so on and so forth, fine us. We all like the money that we make so that's a really simple way to get us to adhere to the rules."
Coaches like their money. The players like their money. The gamblers like their money. The SEC likes its money too.
The best way to make sure that the greenbacks keep flowing is to ensure that the game being played on the field is on the level.
Change is here, it’s time now for the SEC to change with the times and adopt this new rule.
ODDS & ENDS
The Texas football players are on a break right now but that’s all about to end. The players report back for a team meeting on Sunday evening before summer workouts begin Monday.
“We’ve got to do the work every day,” Sarkisian told Kirk Bohls and Cedric Golen in the ‘On Second Thought’ podcast. “For our players, understanding that they all want to win when the fall rolls around but we’re going to win this season because of the work we do in June, July and August.
“That’s how you win those games late. That’s how you get a fourth down stop against Kansas State or a fourth down stop against Houston or a 3rd and 12 completion against TCU when you’ve got to have it.”
Freshman quarterback Trey Owens enrolled early and said the winter workouts were the toughest part of transitioning from high school to college. But he’s already been warned about what is coming.
“Summer is going to be worse than winter, that’s for sure,” Owens told the 3rd & Longhorn podcast.
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It won’t all be work for the Longhorns this summer. They’re going to be able to attend one heck of a party the night before UT officially joins the SEC.
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When the season does kick off, the Longhorns are going to find themselves as favorites in every game they play – except one.
TEXAS FOOTBALL ODDS FOR 2024
Texas -36.5 (Colorado State)
Texas -3.5 (Michigan)
Texas -8.5 (OU)
Texas +1.5 (Georgia)
Source: DraftKings
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The return of the Texas vs. Texas A&M rivalry on the gridiron was one of the big topics reporters wanted to ask head coach Steve Sarkisian about at the SEC Spring Meetings.
“When you're talking about the game with A&M, you're talking about houses divided,” Sarkisian said Tuesday when asked about the matchup. “You're talking about decades of tremendous games, Thanksgiving weekend. So to get that game back, we're looking forward to it. I know (I am), I'm sure A&M is too.”
But the two schools could go at it again this weekend on the diamond when Texas heads to College Station for the NCAA regionals.
“I've never liked them personally, just growing up being a UT fan," Texas first baseman Jared Thomas told the Austin American-Statesman.
But first, the Longhorns, who are a 3 seed in the tournament, have to take on the second-seeded Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns team … and that won’t be an easy game.
"The Aggies aren't even in the picture unless we play well against a very good team," Texas coach David Pierce said. "It's interesting that we faced them last year and I think they have a lot of those kids back. Their pitching's definitely improved, (they have) team speed. We'll take a look at their entire roster and then view how we want to approach it with our staff."
Some have cried foul at the Longhorns being a three seed in the regional but Texas has no one to blame but itself. Had the Longhorns handled their own business (especially against the worst teams they faced this year) then they would probably be hosting a regional of their own.
Now, in order to advance, Texas has to go on the road, in what will surely be a hostile environment, and hope they can pull off the upset.
It may be a tough ask of this team, but they say they’re ready for it.
"I think we've been the underdogs all year," Thomas said. "Nobody's expected us to get to the point we're at anyways so we've got nothing to lose. We're going to go out and give it everything we've got, no regrets."
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Just how hard is it to beat a motivated A&M team? Just ask softball head coach Mike White. His Longhorns, the number one overall seed in the softball College World Series, needed to come from behind in a three-game series against A&M to beat the 16th-seeded Aggies in Austin last weekend.
Now the Horns are headed to Oklahoma City for the College World Series … where, if everything goes to script, Texas will have to face OU for the title in a stadium just 20 miles north of the Sooners’ campus.
“It is a huge advantage obviously for Oklahoma,” White told the Austin American-Statesman.
The NCAA has hosted the CWS in Oklahoma City for several years now and they recently renewed the contract to keep it there through 2035.
TWEETS OF INTEREST:
Coming soon to a University Co-Op near you!
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Many of you have wondered, how will schools be able to afford the extra $20 to $30 million dollar outlay that will come as a result of the House vs. NCAA settlement. Well, here’s one way to do it … corporate sponsorship.
Are y’all pumped for “Dell Field at Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium?” How about the “Yeti” practice jerseys?
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Snoop Dogg may be the first to offer NIL deals to everyone at his namesake bowl game, but he won’t be the last. I suspect every bowl game will find a way to offer NIL deals to incentivize players to play in the game.
This will not end the practice of some players sitting out in order to get ready for the draft – especially players projected to go high in the draft. However, it will make the more marginal players much more likely to go ahead and play.
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Chris Del Conte just stating facts that the Red River Rivalry (or Shootout or whatever other name you want to slap on it) is now the best rivalry game in the SEC.
And yet … somehow … it was Josh Pate that caught flack.
Incidentally, if you can, be sure to watch the Del Conte and Joe Castiglione interview on the Finebaum show. The discussion about how Texas and OU decided it was time to make a move was incredibly interesting.
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The great Kyle Umlang weighed in with his list of best SEC rivalries.
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Bijan Robinson coming to UT was a blessing for the university and city of Austin that will continue to bear fruit for years and years to come.
What an incredible young man.
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I think this is a two-stroke penalty.
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Texas is about to pick up a lot of points with the NCAA rowing national championship coming up.
But this is just a reminder … Texas would have won the Director’s Cup last year if not for a flock of geese landing in front the UT women’s eight boat causing them to finish fourth in a race they were expected to win.
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Oh, and in case you forgot … it’s time!
Texas softball is battle tested and ready to go.
