DALLAS – Steve Sarkisian and select players arrived for SEC Media Days on Wednesday, but the Texas Longhorns have been ever-present at the Omni Dallas all week.

The conference held its preseason main event west of the Mississippi River for the first time in history, in the city its two newest programs meet every year. An hour before the SEC closed Tuesday’s credential pickup, hordes of Austin media members arrived for Texas’s debut the next afternoon. Texas fans parked outside the hotel entrance for autographs as the players arrived. The most eager one snuck up the elevator and infiltrated the media day before security escorted him from the premises.

“We are a big part of Texas. Texas is a big part of us now,”SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said during Monday’s opening statement.

Everyone asked if Texas would be ready for the SEC, but no one asked if the SEC coaches would be ready to provide a scouting report on the Longhorns in July. Seven of the 11 coaches who took the podium before Sarkisian fielded direct questions about Texas. Ole Miss’s Lane Kiffin and new Mississippi State head coach Jeff Lebby shared the lead with three.

Texas defensive back Jahdae Barron channeled “Hoosiers” head coach Norman Dale when asked about the transition from the Big 12.

“Football is football,” Barron said. “The grass and the yardage is not going to change. The field is still going to be the same length. There’s still going to be two endzones.”

Except Texas is not Hickory High School convincing itself it can compete against the bigger, badder South Bend Central. They, along with Oklahoma, are one of the top brands in the nation’s top football conference, and they received that treatment long before they stepped foot in the Omni.

“I think it’s a partnership of elite with elite,” Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables said. “And, again, two programs that in the history of college football take a back seat to nobody.”

Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds once famously declared that Texas didn’t keep up with the Joneses because they were the Joneses. When Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle first reported three years ago Texas and Oklahoma were in talks of joining the SEC, the college football world was indeed forced to keep up with them. While diehard fans now debate if the world Texas helped create is actually better, the Longhorns have reached their verdict. This year, they renew two rivalries dating back to the 1800s with Arkansas and Texas A&M while changing their annual bout with Oklahoma to an SEC product.  

“How many teams get to play three rivalry games in the regular season?” Sarkisian said. “We get to do that. That’s one of the beauties of being in the Southeastern Conference.”

The other beauties? More guaranteed CFP spots that equate to larger revenues as a result of the biggest brands in college football consolidating.

“To be the best, you’ve got to play the best,” Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers said.