COLUMBIA, Mo. — The turn of the calendar brought out Red River ragers.
There were parties on both sides of the Texas-Oklahoma border over the weekend, a geographical distinction that, while intact, has officially switched regions. It’s Southeastern Conference country now.
In Norman, OU’s stadium hosted music, a beer garden and a mechanical bull. UT brought out fireworks and Pitbull.
And they finally got to say that line.
“This is a day we have been building toward for years,†Texas athletics director Chris Del Conte said. “Our fans are really excited about this. You can tell by the turnout. It just means more to the fans in the Southeast Conference and their schools.â€
While the Longhorns’ and Sooners’ migration to the SEC meant plenty to the broader college landscape — the onset of July also marked the decimation of the Pac-12 and the Southern Methodist Mustangs, somehow, in the school’s promotional video — the adjustment is more intriguing and impactful for Missouri.
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The Tigers are no longer the newbies and instead are part of a welcoming party gauntlet that will greet any postseason football hopes. While realignment renders any debate over belonging to a conference’s geographic region borderline laughable, Columbia looks like less of a central-U.S. strawberry in a bowl of southeastern peas when Norman and Austin factor into the equation.
And during the 2024-25 sports year, Mizzou will rekindle rivalries with some former Big 12 buddies.
The first MU team to face either SEC debutant will be the women’s soccer team, which will host Oklahoma on October 18 and visit Texas on October 24, near the end of its SEC slate. Mizzou volleyball travels to the Sooners on October 27 and the defending national champion Longhorns on November 1.
In what very well might produce one of the more hostile Faurot Field atmospheres in recent years, Missouri gets a gridiron showdown with Oklahoma on November 9.
The Tigers and Sooners haven’t faced each other in football since 2011, MU’s last season in the Big 12. The last time they dueled in Columbia was 2010, when coach Gary Pinkel beat first-ranked Oklahoma for the first time in front of 70,000 fans who promptly took the goalposts with them to the bars.
More recently, tension has flared online between fans of the two programs, particularly around recent Missouri recruiting wins that saw coach Eli Drinkwitz retain the commitment of five-star edge rusher Williams Nwaneri and poach highly rated offensive line prospect Cayden Green from the Sooners after just one season in Norman.
Mizzou played Texas in a 2017 bowl game but will have to wait until 2026, at the earliest, to face the Longhorns in conference play — the SEC has paired schools with the same opponents for 2025 as this season.
In men’s basketball, the last MU-UT battle was a 2012 Big 12 conference tournament semifinal that vaulted the Tigers into the title game. The Sooners and Tigers have played three times since Missouri joined the SEC, most recently in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, which produced an OU win.
The sport that might well see the biggest impact from Texas and Oklahoma’s arrival in the SEC is softball. The most recent NCAA Tournament championship matchup saw the Longhorns and Sooners duel in Oklahoma City, which means a deep conference — every SEC team made the latest NCAA Tournament — just got deeper.
The immediate impact in football will be one of the 2024 season’s commanding storylines.
Texas, fresh off a College Football Playoff appearance, is a likely candidate to make it into the first 12-team version. The Longhorns have a high-stakes nonconference matchup with reigning champions Michigan but gentler SEC slate. Georgia’s a title contender again. The rivalry with Oklahoma remains intact and intense. Texas A&M and Kentucky can ruin bids for conference championship game appearances. But Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Florida and Arkansas don’t combine to bite the same way that other programs’ schedules do — like the challenge facing Oklahoma.
The Sooners don’t have the same kind of flashy nonconference showdown on the books for this year but won’t catch a break during SEC play. They’ll play, in order, Tennessee, Auburn, Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi, Mizzou, Alabama and Louisiana State — nearly all of which have a real chance at winding up in the CFP.
That could leave Oklahoma rather battered when it visits Missouri in November. And if MU sees the Longhorns this season, it’ll be in the playoffs, which doesn’t seem out of the question.
The reunions that take place between Mizzou, Texas and Oklahoma this season could have postseason implications, particularly in football. At a minimum, there will be lengthy histories to add to, just with a new conference in a presiding role.