Given that the Tigers are a part of college football’s equivalent of the NFL’s AFC North or the MLB’s NL West, Auburn football fans have had to share the spotlight with neighbors of all backgrounds…unfortunately including Tuscaloosa, Alabama as well.
All kidding aside, the SEC is more competitive than any other conference in college football. Since the turn of the century, the conference has remained at the top of the college football world year in and year out with the usual highest percentage of teams in the AP Top 25 by year’s end.
The gap between the Power Five and the Group of Five conferences has waned in recent years, but parity within the Power Five has too. In recent years, the Big 12 and Pac-12 have fallen off.
That was undoubtedly the impetus to Texas and Oklahoma deciding to take their talents to the southeast to form the most talented college football conference of all time. The move will be a boost to the SEC as a whole, but not to each individual member.
In fact, we think the following programs could be negatively affected the most by the Red River Showdown’s transition to the SEC:
SEC program affected by OU/UT arrival #1: Tennessee
Tennessee hasn’t had a ton going for it since the turn of the century, with NY6 bowl game appearances coming to a dead halt since the 2004 season. While they’ve won a title more recently than Georgia, they still have been mostly irrelevant since Phillip Fulmer left the program in 2008 outside of a two-season stretch in 2015-16.
Well, their branding is about to take a hit since another orange and white program with the acronym UT joining the fray in the next three years.
Is it the end of the world? No, but Tennessee has been short on moral victories for a long stretch of time, so this only pushes them further down the SEC totem pole.