Report: Oklahoma, Texas release joint statement on future with the Big 12

After reports surfaced Wednesday afternoon, the Sooners and Longhorns made their grant of rights plans official in joint statement.

What has been expected since Wednesday has come to pass. The Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns are on their way out of the Big 12.

After several days of reports, the University of Oklahoma officially announced in a joint statement with the University of Texas that the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns will break with the Big 12 when their grant of media rights expires in 2025.

Though the Sooners “intend to honor their existing grant of rights agreement,” they believe that providing notice at this juncture was important “in advance of the expiration of the conference’s current media rights agreement.”

While both universities intend to honor the existing agreements, they did leave space for that to change as they “continue to monitor the rapidly evolving collegiate landscape.”

College football as we know it has been upended over the last couple of months. Just as the name, image and likeness era has begun, two of the Big 12’s premier college football teams will be migrating to a new conference, presumably the Southeastern Conference.

Though nothing’s official at this stage, it’s expected the Sooners and the Longhorns will land in the SEC when it comes time to announce their new conference affiliation.