Chris Del Conte on all things SEC: rivalries, athletics, academics, and what prompted the move

While Texas still has one final season left in the Big 12 there’s quite the anticipation for the Longhorns, along with their arch rival Oklahoma Sooners, to join the SEC for the 2024 season. Texas representatives, including athletic director Chris Del Conte and Texas president Jay Hartzell are currently attending the SEC Spring Meetings in a non-voting capacity.

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On Wednesday afternoon Texas’ AD joined the SEC Network’s Paul Finebaum show live from Destin, Florida where the meetings are being held.

Del Conte on SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey

“What’s interesting, I’ve known a lot of the (SEC) AD’s as friends for a long time, but just to watch Commissioner (Greg) Sankey. I’ve seen him from afar how he conducts business, how he involves coaches in decisions, and administrations in decisions, you hear about it but when you’re immersed in it you see what an unbelievable leader he is.”

Finebaum notes he’s talked with officials from numerous schools and, “everybody wants to play Texas.”

“For us, playing Arkansas again is so awesome. Coach (Frank) Broyles and DKR (Darrell K Royal) retired on the same day in 1976. Arkansas games mattered to our fanbase so much in the 60’s and 70’s. A&M we’ve been playing forever. You have Oklahoma. You have Missouri from the old Big 12 days. But across the board we’ve had great games at LSU, the Alabama game last year was great. For us to elevate ourselves to the programs we’re playing and come back to our rivals, that’s what college sports is all about. For Texas, we know who we are at all times, but the fact we get a chance to take our brand, who we are, into the SEC and compete at the highest level, we are excited about that opportunity and thankful that we were given that opportunity.”

Finebaum states when the news broke that Texas and OU were going to join the SEC there was a buzz at the SEC Media Days he’s never seen and he’s “covered this league fro 150 years. It was remarkable.”

Del Conte on Steve Sarkisian

“I’ve known Coach Sarkisian for a number of years. When I was at Arizona he was at USC, so I’ve known him for a long, long time. He’s a tremendous mind. I would be remiss that Chariman Eltife, President Hartzell — the leadership at our institution has never been stronger. They’ve allowed this move to happen, they embrace athletics, they understand what it does for the institution, but we’re an academic house first. We were having discussions about who to hire, one of the things we all zeroed in on was the growth of Steve Sarkisian and who he was as a person. Paul you’ve spent some time with him, he’s an impressive young man. We could all look back at our lives and say, ‘god, we were perfect, weren’t we?’ [laughter from Finebaum]. What life is about is how you respond to adverse situations. What he’s done about himself and rebuilding his story within our team — look at our culture. I think we had two guys transfer. The portal has been ineffective (as far as losing players) at the University of Texas because of him.”

Balancing academics and athletics

“You think about public institutions, arguably a top-five public institution in the country. When you look at the kids that come to the University of Texas, the decisions they’re making at the end of the decision is Cal, it’s UCLA, it’s Texas, it’s Michigan, sometimes (North) Carolina, but we’re really in that quadrant of who we’re with. To get into the school you have to be in the top six-percent of your high school. So the type of kid we get — we always tell our student-athletes when they go to school there you’re competing against the very best in the fields, but in the classroom, they’re the very best in the country you have to compete with academically. We’re always mindful of the balance of both. We have a saying at Texas, the winning tradition of the University of Texas should not be entrusted to the timid or the weak. That applies to the classroom and the playing fields because who we play matters. We played Arkansas two years ago, you were at that game, it was the wildest game. I’m walking through the tunnel and I look over at Commissioner Sankey and he goes, ‘how about that?’ I go, ‘that was the greatest thing ever.’ We lost the game, we knew, but Steve also said here’s what we have to do to get prepared for that game. That game was fantastic because it gave us a barometer of what we need to do offensively and defensively on the lines. Gotta get big dudes.”

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What prompted the move to the SEC

“It was an unbelievable conversation with our chairman of the board (Kevin Eltife) and president (Jay) Hartzell. We had these conversations, we looked at where Texas is originally, what matters to our fans, what matters to college athletics in general and those conversations centered around leadership in the SEC is second to none. Everyone of those programs are competing at the highest level. That’s where we should be. That’s where the University of Texas belongs. We should be in that league. The conversation was presented to commissioner Sankey form our leadership team and he offered this opportunity. There was no debate about the Big Ten, Pac 12, anywhere else. There was, if this is a possibility, this is where we should go. It started with our chairman of the board and president Hartzell. We were just discussing what was going on in the landscape in college athletics and they both said, ‘is that possible?’ We’ll find out, and it was possible. Isn’t that crazy?”

Academics in the SEC

“In the SEC you have Vanderbilt, you have Florida, you have Georgia. You have great academic institutions that people look at and say they do amazing research. President Hartzell did an amazing job at looking what everyone does in the SEC and goes, ‘let’s not mistake, this is more than a football conference. It’s an entire athletic conference made up of unbelievable academic institutions.’ Sometimes they’ll say, ‘well, not really.’ But if you do a little deep dive, it’s an impressive group.