Prior to arriving at SEC Media Days on Thursday, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin shared a joke with his former colleague Steve Sarkisian, who is entering his third season as the coach at Texas. Come 2024, Kiffin and Sarkisian will be SEC foes with the arrival of Oklahoma and Texas, and the coaches are already bracing for intensity of the 16-team super conference.
"I said [to Sarkisian], 'Well, I don't know any coach that would want to go to the NFL. We are in it now,'" Kiffin said. "Our schedule is like playing in the NFL in the SEC now, especially adding those two."
While the SEC decided to stick with an eight-game conference schedule for now instead of going to a nine-game slate, the addition of the historically strong Longhorns and Sooners should increase schedule strength within what is already regarded as the nation's toughest conference.
"Hats off to the commissioner for getting that done and making it the super conference of all time," Kiffin said.
Kiffin and Sarkisian worked together on Nick Saban's at Alabama in 2016, with Sarkisian taking over offensive coordinator duties in place of Kiffin for the College Football Playoff once Kiffin accepted the FAU job. After a brief stint with the Atlanta Falcons, Sarkisian returned to the Crimson Tide in 2019 and spent two seasons as the program's offensive coordinator, giving him a firsthand look at the league he will be leading the Longhorns into next season.
His counterpart at Oklahoma, Brent Venables, is less familiar with the conference. The second-year Sooners' coach has spent his entire career either in the Big 12 or ACC. But South Carolina coach Shane Beamer, who was an assistant for the Sooners from 2018 to 2020, believes OU is equipped for the conference transition.
"I think they're certainly ready," Beamer said. "This is a team that had won five straight conference championships in the Big 12 going into 2021. Then, in 2021 they won what 10 or 11 games? They had a heck of a season in 2021 with Lincoln [Riley]. So they're not very far off, that's for sure."
Oklahoma dipped to 6-7 last season in Venables' first year and will face a tough opening SEC schedule in 2024 with just three league home games (Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee). Trips to Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss and Missouri and the program's annual neutral-site game with Texas also highlight OU's first SEC slate.
"Certainly, this league is different, the line of scrimmages are different," Beamer said. "Beyond the field, just the stadiums. That's one thing I love about this league, just the stadiums you get to go into every single Saturday. I saw a stat the other day where the SEC led the nation in average attendance per game, and it wasn't even close compared to the rest of the conferences. Realizing that every single Saturday you're going into a stadium that's got 70, 80, 90, 100 thousand. That'll be different for those teams coming in.
"But I certainly feel like they're ready," Beamer continued. "Great tradition at that place, and I'm excited about going back to Norman in 2024. We've got a lot of football to play before then, but that's a proud program with great leadership under Joe Castiglione, and I'm excited about having OU and Texas in this league."
As for Texas, the Longhorns host Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi State in 2024; they play at Arkansas, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt, in addition to their neutral-site rivalry showdown with the Sooners. Texas is also getting a preview of what lies ahead in Week 2 of this season when the Longhorns travel to face Alabama in a battle between Sarkisian and Saban, who is his former boss.
"Oh, I think it's a great addition to the SEC," Saban said. "You have two great programs that have great traditions that have great fan support. I think it just continues to sort of -- the map of the SEC, it is stronger than ever. I think the competition is going to be -- it's always been difficult. It's going to be even more challenging because you've got two really, really good programs who have consistently, if you look at the past, have been, you know, top-10 programs for a lot of years, won national championships."
