Castiglione, Sankey, Harroz discuss timeline of OU's SEC move

NORMAN — Monday marked Oklahoma, and Texas', official entrance into the Southeastern Conference. It was a celebrated day for fans and the university, and it had been highly anticipated ever since the Sooners officially voted to join the SEC nearly three years ago.

But OU athletics director Joe Castiglione made it clear that the thoughts and discussions had begun long before the OU board of Regents unanimously voted in July 2021 to leave the Big 12 for the SEC, and before the story broke in the Houston Chronicle just a few weeks prior.

"This whole thought process started probably 10 years ago," Castiglione said. "Maybe even before that."

There's been a lot of moving parts across the college football landscape over the last decade, but Castiglione — along with OU president Joseph Harroz and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey — pointed to a few specific events. For one, the Big 12 had gone through its own restructuring in 2011 and 2012, when Texas A&M, Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri departed the conference. The 2021 Supreme Court unanimous decision — National Collegiate Athletic Association vs. Alston — that paved the way for collegiate athletes to benefit from name, image and likeness also proved to be a building block in the move.

Several other factors made it appealing, both financially and otherwise, for the Sooners to leave the Big 12 after more than two decades. The Sooners initially voted to join the SEC in July 2025, when the Big 12's Grant of Rights agreement expired, before both sides eventually agreed to an exit one year earlier.

Castiglione, Sankey and Harroz both discussed the timeline, and motivation, of the Sooners' jump to the SEC and during their joint press conference on Monday.

Here's a look at what they said:

(Editor's note: These answers have been edited for length and clarity)

""This whole thought process started probably 10 years ago. Maybe even before that... We just went through three different experiences around conference realignment within a period of two to three years. The summer of 2010, Nebraska (and) Colorado leave. The conference steps back, stabilizes itself, fought through whether expansion was the right way to go then. If so, what would it look like, and decided we’re good. We’re good with 10 members, and we negotiated television contracts with those 10 members. Then a year or so later things change and two of the members are leaving to go to the SEC…

"Now the Big 12 is faced with eight remaining teams and what was it going to do? There were a lot of options on the table. At the time, the decisions that were made were about adding two as opposed to any more than two. The conference is back at the number of original members as was constituted that year and a half before. The two members that were added were and have been great members of the Big 12.

"But things were continuing to evolve. We started paying attention to all of it. If you remember, the onset of other conference moves, and the decision of the Big 12 to look at expanded membership. Us having a glimpse behind the curtain as to what that meant. There was a decision not to do it. I think it was 2016. It was at that point going forward, and reflecting back to the previous four or five years, we had to think about conference realignment when it hit us. Everybody knows there were other conversations that took place in summer of 2010. Even around potential conference realignment in other ways toward the future. Those were the first moments we started to think about what was best for Oklahoma.

"We didn’t necessarily act upon anything but to take a deep dive about ourselves. Fast forward and there are conversations that we all know about that take place behind the scenes. Not just around us, but other institutions were talking about what the future held for themselves. It became apparent we needed to be strong in creating a path for Oklahoma and learned that Texas was thinking the same thing. It became intentional to consider doing something together if the situation were to present itself. That’s where the conversations started."

"October 2015, I presented an analysis to our presidents and chancellors about what might happen. We always have to be mindful of what might happen. Even today, I don’t have some plan. Clearly, I’m not a recruiter. We have to pay attention to what’s happening around us. We’ve done that with this adjustment. Understand that between October 2015 and spring 2021, when this conversation became real, had any number points of outreach from different institutions. Yet we’ve added Oklahoma and Texas.

"That was a focus of spring 2021 and became real. We were coming out of COVID. We couldn’t meet in person. I thought that was important. We had a lot change in our presidential roles. I think it was June 2, 2021, we had a meeting In Birmingham and shared that we had outreach and believed it was serious and united between the University of Oklahoma and University of Texas. I very candidly said to our presidents we can stop, if that’s your wish. We can go forward and talk in three years about the movement around us. The conversations, obviously, continued through June. It wasn’t daily or even weekly, but they were very, very focused.

"We had had a video conference the morning of the story breaking in the Houston Chronicle. There were so many moving parts — the Supreme Court decision, the college football playoff expansion, two commissioners had just come into jobs recently in other conferences and we actually talked about, I talked about slowing down the process. I then was going to have a call with our presidents that next Thursday to report this is real and they're poised to consider their future in the Big 12.

"The message from me is we can't do anything until you decide your future in the Big 12, which attached itself to the Grant of Rights that expire June 30, 2025 and when they informed the Big 12 of their direction, the next day they applied and from that Tuesday until the next Thursday, eight or nine days, an incredibly intense time as you can imagine, resulting in a unanimous vote, which I give all 14 members credit for achieving, the extension of an invitation — invitations individually to the two institutions that were accepted on that Friday.

"... People have asked, were you talking every day? We did not talk at all. My suspicions, I've never evaluated phone records, is there were a lot of other outreaches, but we're really proud of the way we handled ourselves and our decision-making and proud to be here as I said, today."

"Whenever I came into this role, I've been around for a long time. I was here at Oklahoma in a leadership role whenever we made the move to the Big 12, And all of those movements in the Big 12 that (Castiglione) spoke about, I had some understanding of. So as I came into this role, the very first meeting you go to, I wind up talking with Chris Del Conte, the athletic director of Texas, and Joe Castiglione. And in that conversation, we talk about what's going to happen with college athletics, the general topic that takes place there, and what's our role? And can we continue to be Oklahoma, and flourish, and achieve our objectives?

"So the conversation started early. I think all schools have broad, general conversations. It wasn't going to work until you had the right alignment. And for Texas, that was their President, Jay Hartsell. He and I have become very good friends. And he understood the need. We each did our individual analysis. And a big part of this, I grew up here. I'm from Oklahoma. And you don't make a move like this without thinking about not just your school, but what does it mean for the state? Could I look state leaders in the eyes, if and when this broke, and tell them this is a good thing for our state, and not just the University of Oklahoma? Because if you can't deliver that, then you're not in a good position.

"And so as part of this analysis, I broke it down into the simplest two elements, those two questions. But underneath each one of those is a lot of thought. And one of those is, is this good for the state of Oklahoma? When you look at it, the analysis is crystal clear. Those 14 schools bring over $100 billion in impact to their states, and they travel, and they get engaged, and it gives us a bigger stage."

Not an OUInsider.com premium member? Sign up today to get loads of inside information on Oklahoma football, softball, basketball, and recruiting, all for just a few dollars a month. Click HERE to get started!