SwimSwam Pulse is a recurring feature tracking and analyzing the results of our periodic A3 Performance Polls. You can cast your vote in our newest poll on the SwimSwam homepage, about halfway down the page on the right side, or you can find the poll embedded at the bottom of this post.
Our most recent poll asked SwimSwam readers their thoughts on Texas potentially joining the SEC:
RESULTS
Question: Should the University of Texas join the SEC?
- Yes – 61.6%
- No – 38.4%
About 61.6% of voters supported a potential University of Texas move to the SEC for NCAA athletics.
Texas currently competes in the Big 12 Conference. But the prestigious SEC (Southeastern Conference) has extended an official invitation to Texas and to the University of Oklahoma to join the conference beginning in the 2025-2026 school year.
Oklahoma doesn’t offer women’s or men’s swimming & diving programs at the NCAA level. But Texas is a college swimming powerhouse that had both women’s and men’s programs finish in the top 3 at NCAAs last year. The Longhorn men won the national title.
The Big 12 has been a threadbare conference for swimming over the past few years, with just five women’s programs and three men’s programs. Texas is a clear outlier on both sides, easily winning conference titles year-in and year-out without much competition.
The conference hasn’t been truly competitive since Texas A&M made the jump to the SEC in 2012. But if Texas were to follow A&M into the SEC, one of the toughest and deepest swimming conferences would get even more crowded with top talent.
61.6% of SwimSwam voters favored that new landscape, which would consolidate the major NCAA swimming action into the remaining four of the Power-5 conferences: the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-12.
The move would also require major changes for the remaining Big 12 programs. TCU and West Virginia would remain as the only men’s programs in the Big 12, and would probably need to coordinate with another conference for a combined championships meet. The women’s side would be left with Kansas, Iowa State, TCU and West Virginia.
Below, vote in our new A3 Performance Poll, which asks voters to pick the most entertaining of the single-gender Olympic relays:
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ABOUT A3 PERFORMANCE
The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner
College athletics will be just semi-professional football and basketball in a near future with other sports relegated to intramural competition.
The women’s team will be crushed.
Lot of Florida fans on SwimSwam
I think the move is good for swimming fans as it stands right now. But bad for college athletics in general – I think conferences should have some level of historic/geographic ties. I miss the days of the Big 12 when it had Missouri, Nebraska and A&M