Mussatto: Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark will not be at OU-Texas. I don't blame him.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, and not Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, will be in Dallas on Saturday for OU-Texas.
Sankey, according to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, will leave sometime during the game to catch the Texas A&M-Alabama game in College Station.
A rival commissioner being at the Big 12’s marquee game is just the latest reminder of how weird things have gotten in this era of conference realignment. You’ve heard of a coach-in-waiting. Sankey will enter the Cotton Bowl as commissioner-in-waiting, getting a sneak peak at the prized programs he poached from the Big 12 to the SEC.
You can’t blame OU and Texas for taking the money and running, but you can point to them for what their cash grab prompted: chaos, consolidation and the erasure of some of college football’s charm.
If you, like me, feel a little bummed about that, then so what if Yormark appears petulant by skipping OU-Texas or, in August, by telling Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire and a room full of Red Raider boosters that McGuire “better take care of business” against the Longhorns.
More: Mussatto: A 2:30 p.m. OU-Texas kickoff? New SEC deal with ABC/ESPN could open door
Was it resentful? Sure. But a lot of Big 12 fans from Lubbock to Ames to Stillwater to Manhattan resent the Sooners and Longhorns for big-timing the rest of the league. Yormark was doing nothing more than appealing to his audience.
Yes, Yormark still presides over a league with OU and Texas as its biggest brands, but being congenial to the Sooners and Longhorns isn’t going to win them back. Much more crucial is for Yormark to show the likes of OSU and Iowa State that he has their backs.
When Yormark was hired as Big 12 commissioner last summer, OU and Texas had already defected. Aligning with the Sooners and Longhorns wasn’t a priority then, and it’s not a priority now. Yormark’s priority has been to keep the league alive.
And after former commissioner Bob Bowlsby fortified the Big 12 by adding BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF, Yormark lured Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah from the Pac-12 while the Big Ten picked off Washington and Oregon.
The Big 12, entering the 2024 football season with 16 schools, has positioned itself as the third-best conference — although a distant third — behind the SEC and Big Ten.
Conference shakeup, even if not for OU and Texas, was bound to happen given the disparity of television rights deals, but the Sooners and Longhorns were shrewd in starting the trend, and would likely do so again despite the consequences.
More: Big 12 football tiers: Where do best wins of season rank for OU, Oklahoma State?
First, though, comes one last Big 12 edition of OU-Texas at 11 a.m. Saturday. At least Yormark can only hope it's the last.
Because if there’s a worse look than an undefeated OU and an undefeated Texas meeting, in their Big 12 swan song, as the only ranked teams in the conference, it’s OU and Texas staging a rematch two months from now in the Big 12 championship.
In that case, Yormark would have no excuse not to be there.
And Sankey? Heck, he could try to make an 11 a.m. OU-Texas kickoff in Arlington and leave early enough to catch the SEC’s 3 p.m. game in Atlanta.
It wouldn’t be his first time double-dipping.
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
More: OU vs. Texas football: What you need to know about Sooners-Longhorns in Red River Rivalry
No. 12 OU vs. No. 3 Texas
KICKOFF: 11 a.m. Saturday at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas (ABC)
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Big 12's Brett Yormark will not be at OU-Texas; SEC's Greg Sankey will
