Oklahoma All-American Dom Demas (Photo courtesy of Tony Rotundo; WrestlersAreWarriors.com)Reports surfaced on Wednesday from the Houston Chronicle that OU and Texas had reached out to the SEC to discuss the possibility of leaving the Big 12 and joining the SEC.
Since then, rumors have swirled in every direction, some assuming it is a done deal and the schools are both headed out, some saying it's purely hearsay and there's no truth at all to it, and there's just about everything in between.
But what would happen with the OU wrestling program if the rest of the school's sports went to the SEC?
As most know, the SEC does not sponsor wrestling, so OU would have to wrestle in another conference. We've seen this exact scenario play out once before. Missouri and Texas A&M left for the SEC in 2011, and when that occurred, Mizzou went to the MAC for wrestling. Ten years later, the Big 12 announced Missouri would be coming back and this upcoming wrestling season, we'll see their return.
If OU were to bail on the conference, theoretically, they could be allowed to stay in the Big 12 for wrestling. But as we've seen with Missouri, the powers that be in the Big 12 aren't likely to take their exit kindly and would probably not allow that immediately.
So, where would OU wrestling go?
The MAC makes a reasonable amount of sense. OU head coach Lou Rosselli is from New York and has coached in both Pennsylvania and Ohio, and the MAC has schools in all those states. There would be some benefits for Rosselli as the travel and competition in those locations would give him even more recruiting inroads in the area. OU would also quickly be a power in the conference as we saw with Missouri, but their competition would certainly not be on the level they currently see in the Big 12.
The Pac-12 recently announced steps they were taking to bolster wrestling membership in the conference. They've recently added Little Rock, which is, of course, not far from Norman. And given the direction they seem to be pushing with wrestling, it's safe to assume they would be in the conversation.
The bigger conversation surrounding this is what it could do to the conference as a whole? If OU and Texas, the Big 12 cash cows, were to leave, many believe that could create chaos across the college sports landscape and even potentially lead to the demise of the entire Big 12. If this happens, it's not only bad for the Big 12, but also bad for the sport of wrestling.
The Big 12 conference and commissioner Bob Bowlsby have been good for wrestling. You can go back to the old Big 8 days, which helped developed traditional national powers like Oklahoma State, Iowa State, and Oklahoma. And absorbing the Western Wrestling Conference has been a wonderful thing for wrestling and put the affiliate programs on a national stage. South Dakota State got an NCAA champion and is on the way to getting some of the best facilities in the country; Wyoming was squarely in the mix for the Big 12 title at the conference tournament last year, and on and on. If the Big 12 goes away, who knows what could happen with some of these programs that have almost all been moving in a positive direction recently?
There's a lot of uncertainty with this right now and most things surrounding this are all speculation, so who knows what will happen? Maybe nothing. But if this does happen, it's sure to cause a ripple effect across the wrestling world in one way or another.
Recommended Comments
There are no comments to display.
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now