Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark tells TTU's Joey McGuire "you better take care of business" versus Texas
Back in July at Big 12 Media Days, conference commissioner Brett Yormark boasted about the win-win scenario he helped broker that has Texas and Oklahoma heading for the Southeastern Conference come July 1, 2024, one year earlier than originally anticipated.
[Join Inside Texas TODAY for just $1 or get an annual subscription at a discounted price!]
Yormark was very diplomatic as well. Despite Yormark, the Big 12, and its remaining teams having some justification for bitterness following the departure of two of its cornerstone institutions — Texas and Oklahoma — for the SEC, the commissioner said they would send off UT and OU with gratitude.
“We’re going to celebrate our new four, and in fact we’re going to celebrate Texas and Oklahoma and all the contributions they’ve made to this conference since day one, because they’ll always be a big part of this conference,” Yormark said in July.
Since then, even after solidifying the future of the league with the additions of Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and Colorado, Yormark’s tone has changed a bit.
Yormark was a featured speaker at the Red Raider Club’s kickoff luncheon in Lubbock on Wednesday along with Texas Tech head football coach Joey McGuire.
Speaking to a pro-Tech crowd (and therefore an inherently anti-Texas one), Yormark discussed how he helped the Big 12 jump the Pac-12 when it came to media rights deals. He also spoke about how Texas and Oklahoma are set to leave in 2024, something he thought was the right course of action.
After months, if not a whole year, of diplomacy, there was then a crack in Yormark’s façade.
“Coach (McGuire), I’m not going to put any pressure on you, but I’m going to be in Austin on Thanksgiving,” Yormark said Wednesday. “And you better take care of business like you did right here in Lubbock last year.”
Yormark had kept the air of statesmanship throughout the process, but his comments Wednesday are more in-line with those one of his lieutenants provided at Big 12 Media Days.
Tim Weiser, the deputy commissioner for the conference and a former Kansas State athletic director, was on the 3MAW Podcast in Arlington and took his opportunity to throw a barb at the Texas football program, who has defeated K-State in six-straight contests.
“I continue to maintain that the choice Texas made wasn’t a financial one because we all know what Texas’ resources are like,” Weiser said. “I think theirs was more about affiliating with a group of schools that, on a given Saturday, they would rather get beat by Alabama than they would Kansas State, or Florida than Iowa State. That, I think, was really what was driving the way they looked out down the road.”
Words from the conference that hint at, if not outright suggest, disdain for UT (more so than OU) for leaving the league are now in the public sphere and emanating from the top of the organization’s leadership pyramid.
The statements from the Texas side given throughout the exit process contrast greatly with those from the league.
“The Big 12 came to us wanting out early,” UT board of regents chairman Kevin Eltife told On Texas Football on Tuesday. “They wanted to negotiate a deal to leave in ’24 and we did that. I think more than anything what I’m most proud of is how we handled the move. We gave notice — we gave actually four years notice if you think about it. We tried to do the honorable thing. There are people who still don’t like it. Well, sorry. We did what’s in the best interest of the University of Texas.”
Texas athletics director Chris Del Conte, who Eltife said brought the idea of the move to the SEC to he and UT president Jay Hartzell, said last month on On Texas Football the Longhorns would need to be prepared for these types of sentiments heading into the final season of the Big 12.
“One of the things we talked about is ‘embracing the hate’ for us this last year in the Big 12,” Del Conte said. “Our goal is to win a conference championship in every sport that we participate in and win a national championship in every sport we participate. That’s always gonna be the goal here. It’s realistic at the University of Texas, but that’s our goal. We want to exit in a classy way at the same time to participate at the highest level.”
Del Conte was obviously aware of the unsympathetic comments headed toward his athletic department from rival fanbases when speaking in July.
It’s unlikely he anticipated those types of remarks coming from the leadership of the conference his athletic department is still a part of, remarks in stark contrast to the statements he and his immediate superiors have provided.
