SwimSwam Pulse: 62% Think Texas Should Join the SEC

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 Pollwhich asks voters to pick the most entertaining of the single-gender Olympic relays:

Which Olympic relay do you find most entertaining?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

legend-long-2

ABOUT A3 PERFORMANCE

A3 Performance is an independently-owned, performance swimwear company built on a passion for swimming, athletes, and athletic performance. We encourage swimmers to swim better and faster at all ages and levels, from beginners to Olympians.  Driven by a genuine leader and devoted staff that are passionate about swimming and service, A3 Performance strives to inspire and enrich the sport of swimming with innovative and impactful products that motivate swimmers to be their very best – an A3 Performer.

The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner

4
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

4 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Tomek
2 years ago

College athletics will be just semi-professional football and basketball in a near future with other sports relegated to intramural competition.

Rt
2 years ago

The women’s team will be crushed.

Togger
2 years ago

Lot of Florida fans on SwimSwam

Landrew
2 years ago

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

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

Read More »