One of the many topics at SEC media days is if the Oklahoma Sooners are ready for their new conference when they make the move in 2024.
You heard from Nick Saban, Brian Kelly, and many others who love the new additions to their league.
Another coach who sees issues with the Sooners making the move is former Oklahoma assistant coach and current head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks, Shane Beamer.
He believes they are “ready” for this move. He spoke about the six straight conference championships they won before winning 11 games in 2021.
But he acknowledged the SEC is a different animal than the Big 12.
“The line of scrimmages are different,” Beamer said. “Beyond the field, just the stadiums. It’s one thing I love about this conference, just the stadiums that you get to go into every single Saturday.”
Beamer relayed that the SEC led the nation in average attendance and that will be a far cry from what the Big 12 can put in the stands.
That will certainly be an adjustment period for the Sooners. The SEC has eight of the 12 largest stadiums in college football. Outside of Oklahoma and the Texas Longhorns, the Big 12 doesn’t have any in the top 25.
“Certainly feel like they’re ready,” the former OU assistant went on to say. “They’ve got great tradition at that place. Certainly excited about going back to Norman in 2024. We got a lot of football to play before then, but that’s a proud program with great leadership under (athletic director) Joe Castiglione. Excited to have OU and Texas in this awesome conference.
Because of last season, it seems like people have forgotten Oklahoma is one of the “blue bloods” of college football.
Typically those programs don’t get knocked down for long. We’ve seen it with recruiting. Oklahoma had a top-five class in 2023 and is on an absolute hot streak right now in the 2024 cycle.
Now, all that’s left is for Brent Venables to prove the Sooners can have as much success on the field as they’ve had off of it. That will determine how successful Oklahoma is in the SEC.
Historically, defensive-minded coaches take a little longer to get things going than head coaches. Go look at Nick Saban’s first season for the Alabama Crimson Tide and Kirby Smart’s first year for the Georgia Bulldogs.
Georgia was coming off two straight 10-3 seasons when Smart took over and they went 8-5. They could have easily gone 6-7. They beat Nichols State and a four-win Missouri Tigers team by a combined three points. They also beat a 7-6 Kentucky Wildcats team by three points as well.
But both Smart and Saban turned it around the next season. Smart went 13-2, and after a 7-6 campaign, Saban went 12-2. Venables and the Oklahoma fan base are hoping for similar progress to really show they are ready for success in the SEC.
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