How OU athletics is running into SEC with confidence: ‘We know where we’re going forward’

NORMAN — Beginning at midnight with fireworks inside Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium and continuing throughout Monday across the state, thousands of OU fans gathered to celebrate the program’s official entrance into the Southeastern Conference.

OU athletic director Joe Castiglione and university president Joseph Harroz Jr., along with several coaches including Patty Gasso, began the festivities in the early morning hours in Oklahoma City. Brent Venables, Barry Switzer, Skip Johnson and others helped Sooners fans in Tulsa celebrate waking up in the SEC.

“We’re running into this,” Castiglione confidently told fans at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill.

Although the move became official hours earlier and Paul Finebaum had already begun his four-hour show outside the stadium’s north gates, it never felt as real until the moment Castiglione, Harroz and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey — the three men, along with Texas’ officials, who are responsible for orchestrating this historic move — trotted into the Sooners’ red room for a press conference Monday afternoon.

All the speculation can be put to rest. No more talk, — although that’s what OU spent much of Monday doing— the Sooners and Longhorns are SEC members.

More: Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione hints at Lincoln Riley leaving OU football to avoid SEC

“We are a 16-member conference,” Sankey said. “We are no longer 14 waiting for two, we are at 16 and it’s a personal point of pride to be here today to welcome, officially, the University of Oklahoma into the Southeastern Conference.”

There was a certain swagger in the air on OU’s campus Monday. The Sooners not only wanted the nation to know they were coming to compete in the SEC but the program flexed its national brand and resources to a national audience.

Harroz talked about the…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/ou-athletics-running-sec-confidence-110454672.html

Author : The Oklahoman

Publish date : 2024-07-03 11:04:54

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