The SEC Hate Rankings

How much should Texas fans hate each new conference mate upon the dawn of SEC play?

I don’t know who was on IT Support for the College of Liberal Arts at Texas in the Fall of 2011, but they don’t work there anymore. One Monday night that football season, all hell broke loose after one innocuous email that was meant to be sent to the masses enrolled in that school’s various majors—you know, English, Political Science, History. The types of majors you don’t use the rest of your life, unless spouting off fun facts or competing in trivia nights. Anyway, the LISTSERV collapsed, and instead of the thousands upon thousands of recipients being blind-copied, everyone had the ability to reply.

I was at an event with some friends when our phones started blowing up as a literal flood of emails rolled in—thousands upon thousands of students replying. There were a lot of shots taken at Bill Powers (RIP), as well as “You suck” and “Take me off this thread.” But there was also a ton of agendas flying, from the personal (“Give me a passing grade in Contemporary Moral Problems, B*TCH”) to the political (“F*ck Mitt, Obama’s the sh*t!”). My friends and I were scrolling through the emails, all laughing at the replies, until we saw one from a name we recognized. For the sake of this story, we’ll call him Lupo.

“Texas should join the SEC. That is all.”

Lupo’s response made the thread blow up even more, as it sparked a heated debate in the replies about joining the SEC and its merits as a conference, both athletically and academically. Remember, this was the College of Liberal Arts, not McCombs Business School, so there were a lot of diverse opinions on the matter. I remember one guy (who I also knew) responding that we shouldn’t join the SEC because of the South’s troubled past. (I hope he doesn’t read much history about Texas.) He mainly advocated for joining the PAC-12 because he wanted to see the Pacific Sound. Maybe he eventually realized Seattle was free to visit regardless of whether the Longhorns and Huskies were playing, but it was a long night for the IT department nonetheless.

Lupo’s strong stance, combined with the Aggies and Missouri leaving for the SEC after that season, sparked quite a few long debates about conference realignment that my friends and I engaged in at Crown and Anchor, Workhorse, and our various haunts. But it didn’t really matter—it wasn’t possible. Much to Lupo’s dismay, and later my own, Texas would never join the SEC. It was impossible.

Until it wasn’t.

I still remember where I was when I read the news that Texas and Oklahoma were joining the SEC. I was on a worthless Zoom call on my back deck. It was cooler than most July days in Austin, so I sat outside while I wallowed in middle management misery. My eyes wandered over to Inside Texas, where a message board thread was blowing up as fast as the LISTSERV had done back in the day. Immediately, the naysayers swooped in: “The legislature will block it,” “The one-member state SEC schools will block it with A&M.” But they didn’t—and here we are.

I said to a friend the other night during the ULM game that seeing the SEC logo on the field and jerseys still feels surreal. There’s a small part of me that still laments it. But then I think about the fact that Texas is going to play our three historic rivals again, that Georgia is coming to Austin in less than a month, and how we’re going to play Alabama and LSU on a semi-regular basis—and I can’t freaking wait. Tip of the cap to Lupo, he was an early adopter of something that became necessary because of how the power dynamics shifted. A lot of it is gross, and even though the SEC is still semi-regional, it’s all different now, college football that is. But it’s here, and this Saturday the Mississippi State Bulldogs arrive in Austin for a conference game. Like the Wabash Cannonball rumbling down the rail, the truth of it all couldn’t be stopped three years ago or now. All Texas fans can do is embrace it.

A lot of our former conference mates, like Nebraska, the Aggies, and the left-behind Big 12 schools, like to wax on about how Texas destroys conferences. I won’t act like Texas is an easy partner, but I also admire how Texas raises its own flag higher than that of whatever conference they’re in. If Texas fans chant “SEC” (which they have), it’s done ironically. Texas looks out for itself, for better or worse, and they’ve finally leaned into embracing the hate. So I wanted to write about hate and give it right back toward our new conference mates.

Upon the dawn of a new era, here are our first annual SEC Hate Rankings to help you get accustomed to our new friends and enemies:

Little to No Hate Tier: “What Would You Say You Do Here?”

15. Vanderbilt
Texas travels to Nashville this year on October 26th, and though Vanderbilt looks a little peskier this season than normal, thanks to transfer quarterback Diego Pavia, they are still the quintessential bottom feeder of the conference. If you want an insight into Vanderbilt passion, I offer two examples. One, the game in Nashville this season will essentially be a home game for Texas. Two, I know a few people who went to undergrad at Vanderbilt, and the ‘Dores aren’t any of their favorite college football teams.

If this were a baseball ranking, we might assign more hate their way, thanks to their finagling around scholarship limits. But ultimately, Vanderbilt reminds me of the time a family came to the wrong house on Thanksgiving. They started making small talk, unpacking their food, and it gradually occurred to my extended family that nobody knew whose guest they were. Eventually, they rushed out, horrified. Vanderbilt’s inclusion in the SEC is like those people—they just haven’t left yet.

The “Remind Me Your Name Again” Tier

14. South Carolina
Williams-Brice Stadium takes the cake for the ugliest stadium in the SEC. It looks like a concrete monstrosity my son constructed out of magnet tiles while under a melatonin-induced haze. The Cocks are what Oklahoma would be if they didn’t have the Sooners' football history—a school with some in-state talent that mostly needs to rely on nearby recruiting hotbeds. Rather than innovate, South Carolina always tries to fix everything with a big splash in coaching or recruiting.

13. Mississippi State
I want More Cowbell, and if my experience in Omaha at the College World Series was any indication, Bulldog fans are good hangs. They’re like Texas Tech fans when they’re not over at your house setting your couch on fire—generally a good time. Just don’t get them drinking and let them start talking about Texas or Ole Miss. That said, they do employ a member of the Briles family at head coach in Jeff Lebby, and they’re Texas’ first SEC opponent.

12. Kentucky
A Stoops brother coaches them—that’s enough for me. Otherwise, wake me up when it’s basketball season.

In truth, this is the biggest “trap game” on Texas’ schedule this season. The Wildcats narrowly lost to Georgia and come to Austin in November for a game nestled between two intense rivalry games on the road, in Arkansas and Texas A&M.

The “Punchable Face” Tier

11. Florida
If Texas fans annoy the college football world with our large egos and inflated self-worth, I’d introduce you to Gator fans. Most of my hate for Florida stems from the Urban Meyer, Tim Tebow, Aaron Hernandez days, but nobody has won there since, and now they’re about to fire their own Charlie Strong in Sunbelt Billy Napier. I’d ask: Is Florida a place where you will win, or a place where people have won? There’s a difference. The word “Swamp” might not be a nickname but a symbol of their current status.

10. Ole Miss
Have you ever met someone who went to Ole Miss? Have you ever felt like reminding them that Ole Miss isn’t Harvard?

9. Missouri
The history with Texas in the Big 12 puts the Tigers higher on this list. Otherwise, I am not sure what to say, other than my niece is a freshman there, and she got into UT but chose Missouri—and that upset me. Also, their coach, Eli Drinkwitz, is the type of cargo shorts-wearing, neon Crocs-sporting guy that you go dove hunting with, and he prays for everyone’s safety before the hunt, but after six cans of Bud Ice, you’re on the ground bleeding and there’s a bunch of BBs in your ass.

8. Auburn
If the Aggies have a crazier sister that Texas fans don’t know about, it’s Auburn. Luckily for Texas, they’re singularly obsessed with the Tide and Georgia to a lesser extent. Auburn also doesn’t pretend to be holier than thou with things like honor codes, hissing, and claims that “War Eagle fans don’t lie, cheat, and steal,” then embrace characters like Johnny Football and Jimbo Fisher. Auburn sells you snake oil and tells you exactly what it is. That said, they and Texas A&M employ similar strategies—they desperately throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks in hopes that one day something will. The difference is that occasionally, the flying War Tigers get something stuck.

The “We’re going to start off the night together with you telling me how much you love me then we’ll be fighting in the parking lot” Tier

7. LSU
It’s hard to hate LSU—they’ve got great uniforms and better food. They might be the toughest program in the SEC; when they get knocked down, they get up really quick. LSU was always so authentic, so one-hundred-percent them, that it was easy to see why their success was plentiful. But with hiring Brian Kelly, it seems like they might have gotten off course. Kelly’s faking of a Southern accent when he was introduced as their coach a few years ago might have symbolized that not only is he out of place, but the TIGAHs have lost their way too.

The “Restraining Order” Tier

6. Tennessee
Good fight song, terrible fans, Josh Heupel is their coach. The fact they’re a threat to Texas this season puts them higher on this list than they would have been previously. The Vols have a relentless offense and an insane pass rush that bludgeons lesser opponents like the Bob Stoops teams of old. But they’re really at this spot on the list because of Vol fans' obsession with who the real UT is. I’ll let them in on a secret: Texas fans don’t care. A day before Texas knocked the Vols out of the College World Series in 2021, a Volunteer fan gave me the Horns Down in a restroom. He then proceeded to remind me about how many Tennessee men fought in the Texas Revolution and helped win the war against Mexico. My response to him: “So they wanted out of Tennessee so bad they had no problem dying in Texas? Thanks for the help.”

The “Envy” Tier

5. Alabama
I’ve written about Alabama a lot the past few years, before the game in Austin and after Texas beat them in Tuscaloosa. What still pisses me off the most about Tide fans is how nice they are, not counting old Harvey Updyke. They’ve won too much and need to stop winning to get a little mean streak back. Unfortunately, they hired Kalen DeBoer, who I don’t think is Nick Saban, but he’s one of the three best coaches in college football, alongside Kirby Smart and Sark.

4. Georgia
Ultimately, Texas and Steve Sarkisian are trying to emulate what Kirby Smart and the Dawgs have built in Athens—without the Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift impersonations. Bevo got one over on Uga at the Sugar Bowl, but the October 19th matchup in Austin will be between a program trying to grab the brass ring (Texas) and another that refuses to give it up (Georgia).

One note on Dawgs fans: I have a lot of friends who love them. They’ve won two national championships in three years, and they need to quit acting like victims.

The “Send a Message” Tier

3. Arkansas
There’s a lot of history in this rivalry. Long before the Aggies tried to get away from Texas, the Razorbacks led the way. As many have said, the Piggies “hate Texas more than they love themselves.” The 2021 beatdown of the Longhorns in Fayetteville came just after the SEC announcement and was a rude awakening for Texas on how far they were from contention. In November, the Longhorns go back to the site of that miserable game for some sweet retribution.

The “Blinded by Hate” Tier

2. Texas A&M
Where do I begin? How about the fake moral superiority and honor code that is assigned when convenient, the goofy-ass traditions, the fake National Championship plaques, the obsession with Texas in all that they do, or the campus that looks like it was designed by the Soviet politburo on top of an ugly wasteland? But hey, the dry grass is so precious you shouldn’t walk on it.

That said, I am preparing myself for a loss in November out of self-preservation. I know I’ll be catatonic that night if the maroon and white prevail, but it won’t change where the two programs sit in the conference pecking order. After all, there will be next year, because the game is back on an annual basis, as it should be. I love my Aggie fan friends and family that’s why I hate so deeply, why you do too. In what other area of life can I relish in someone else’s pain so much and not be a sociopath? This irrational, blind, beautiful hatred is what makes this sport so rich.

Thanks for your baseball coach.

1. Oklahoma
Nothing hurts like a loss in Red River—last year still stings. At the same time, nothing feels better than watching the Golden Hat come home to Austin.

Oklahoma owned the Big 12, absolutely owned it, while Texas vastly underperformed for the most part, especially over the last decade. But coming into the SEC, Oklahoma has tripped over the threshold and fallen face-first, while the Longhorns are here to kick the damn door down.