Bohls: Move over, SEC, and make room for the the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners

While I got ya, here are nine things and one crazy prediction:

1. Texas and OU will make the SEC a sweet 16

The SEC is standing pat: Don’t look for the SEC to expand beyond its 16 teams after Texas and Oklahoma join the new league the summer of 2024. “I’ve never been a recruiter,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told me last week. “Well, other than three years coaching golf at Northwest State. We’re focusing on moving to 16. There’s plenty of talk out there (about future expansion). We feel we have a future with 16 outstanding members, but we’re mindful of what’s going on.” …  We assume both Texas and OU will join the league and receive full shares like the other 14 schools. But, Sankey said, “I don’t delve into the details of full shares.” … Texas has four future football games against Georgia and Florida that had been scheduled as nonconference games and we assume those will be canceled. … Did hear a rumor that the SEC might hold its conference basketball tournament at Texas' Moody Center, but Sankey shot that down. “Not sure where that started,” he said. “We’re in Nashville for the next year. The women’s tournament is in Greenville this year and the next two years. Our league has not shown a willingness to go to facilities used for campus games.” That said, it won’t surprise at all if the SEC holds its high-profile football media days in either Dallas or Houston. ... I still think Texas' permanent rivals should be OU, Texas A&M and Arkansas — most Razorbacks still consider the Horns their top rival. OU should be grouped with Texas, A&M and Missouri and the Aggies should be linked to Texas, OU and either LSU or Arkansas. It'd make no sense for the Aggies and Horns not to play annually.

Bohls: Texas, OU exits bring much-needed clarity

While the SEC knows “It Just Means More” for the best, baddest conference around, the Pac-12 meandering aimlessly around should adopt the slogan “It Just Means More … Streaming” if it can’t land a profitable deal with ESPN, Fox or any big network to equal or top the $32 million each that Big 12 schools will get in their next media rights deal. I honestly don't see a path to big-time for the Pac-12, so it should just try to grab Gonzaga for hoops and Boise State for football. Who cares about the overall greatness of the programs? Maximize with what they are good at. Short of that, make a pitch for any school in Texas (think time zone, more eyeballs, big-time recruits) or Kansas for hoops or Nebraska for (past) gridiron glory or Oklahoma State for strong football, basketball, wrestling, baseball and golf. Is UTSA beneath the Pac-12? Is Rice too irrelevant? Hey, the Big Ten grabbed Rutgers. Think way, way, way out of the box, Pac-12, before you dissolve.

2. Austin FC, coming off a huge year, makes its pitch for 2023

Bring it on: Year 3 will be here in just 10 days, but count Austin FC as ready and eager to try to successfully follow up a season that had Verde in the Final Four, falling just short against LAFC in the Western Conference final. In a remarkable turnaround, Austin bedazzled the league with a prolific offense paced by striker Sebastián Driussi and is prepared for a repeat performance starting with a home match against St. Louis on Feb. 25. Driussi just signed a multi-year deal with the Verde and Black extending through the end of the 2025 season with an option for 2026, and that had to get done if Austin wants to eventually hoist the Cup. He’s been the MVP since his arrival. In 54 MLS appearances, Driussi has scored a mind-boggling 30 goals with 12 assists. … So is Verde now the hunted after finding more depth and offensive firepower? “I think that’s a good way to put it,” third-year head coach Josh Wolff said this week. “But we still want to be the hunters. We still think we have to go out and certainly establish and prove who we are. We want to build off our good years, but we want to build consistency.”

3. Josh Wolff finds yet another hat to wear for Austin FC

A change in job description: Wolff is adding to his duties in the absence of Claudio Reyna, who resigned as sporting director to take a lesser position of technical advisor of the club after his and his wife’s entanglement over their accusations of physical abuse by U.S. men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter over a decades-old hit against his own wife when the two were dating in college in the 1990s. The ensuing investigation of Berhalter — stemming from Claudio’s wife Danielle’s charges seemingly out of anger over the mistreatment of their son Gio during his very limited World Cup play — may cause the team not to re-up Berhalter as U.S. coach and definitely put Austin FC in a very poor light. Wolff becomes the interim chief soccer officer and works with interim sporting director Sean Rubio, 34, who was promoted from the staff in the offseason to replace Reyna. “It’s a personal decision that we support unilaterally,” Rubio said. “It’s unfortunate in some of the circumstances around it, but at the same time, we totally support him and are happy he still has a role at the club." … No pressure on Wolff and Rubio to repeat last year’s smashing success, right? “Josh and I have talked about it a lot. This is a new challenge for us with the weight of expectations. It’s a new experience, and we’re super excited because we want to continue that level of success and raise a trophy.” … Austin FC will be bolstered by the addition of nine newcomers, including striker Gyasi Zardes and center back Leo Väisänen. … Interestingly enough, the MLS office still has not announced a postseason format but could retain last year’s single-elimination model, which could again benefit Verde since it twice hosted playoff games, beating both Real Salt Lake and Dallas before losing at LA, and well might again in 2023. “The good news is our goals haven’t changed,” Wolff said. “We want to make the playoffs and we want to have a home-field game in some way, shape or form and take advantage of that. There was an immediacy to it and an intensity to (single-elimination).”

4. A tangle at the top of the Big 12 race

Tightly bunched: Bob Huggins was impressed with Texas after his West Virginia team lost by 34 to the Longhorns on Saturday, but the Hall of Fame coach doesn’t notice a big difference between the Big 12 frontrunners and the rest of the pack. “I don’t see a whole lot of separation between Texas and Kansas and Iowa State,” Huggins said. “And on the right day, we’re a pretty good team. But our defense sucked. They didn’t need any help because we were bad.” … Huggins still thinks his Mountaineers have a strong chance of making the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team. “We just have to win a couple more games with the wins we already have. We’ve got some out-of-conference wins. We’ll be all right, and then we’ll have a chance again in Kansas City.”

More: Texas Tech knocks off Texas men

5. It was a super Sunday for television

Ad-venturous Sunday: Thought the Super Bowl commercials were excellent. My personal winners were the Breaking Bad Pop Corners, RAM’s clever Premature Electrification, Bradley Cooper’s mom and the "Grease" spinoff spots by T-Mobile, Kia’s Binky Dad and Ben Affleck’s moonlight gig with Dunkin’ Donuts, especially when his bride appeared at the drive-through window and reminded hubby, “Grab me a glaze.” … I wasn’t down with the Hellmann’s “who’s in my fridge” ad or Doritos’ triangles or Downy. But I also liked Rickie Fowler in the third-person Michelob ULTRA spot. Dog ads were terrific, but hard to screw those up.

Golden: Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes the best of the best

6. On deck: a complete overhaul of Texas baseball

Holy makeover, Texas baseball: This is a classic rebuild for David Pierce since the Texas baseball coach welcomes back two outfield starters (Dylan Campbell and Eric Kennedy), a second baseman moving to shortstop (Mitchell Daly) and one Big 12 rotation starter in proven lefty Lucas Gordon (7-2) off a College World Series team. He’s got lots of holes to fill, including replacing seven every-day starters and almost the entire infield, has 19 new players and two new primary assistants in pitching coach Woody Williams, who has to largely rebuild the staff, and hitting coach Steve Rodriguez. The Horns lost a ton in pitching and power, but Division1baseball still has the Longhorns projected as one of six NCAA Tournament teams though shockingly low as the league’s fifth-place team. Texas set the program record with 128 home runs in 2022, but only 23 of those were hit by returning players, including 10 from Campbell to go with 14 stolen bases. Watch out for freshman phenom Jalin Flores at third base, rookie Jared Thomas at first, TCU transfer Porter Brown in the outfield and two USC transfers, pitcher Charlie Hurley and catcher Garret Guillemette.

7. Texas women's basketball has work to do

Seeding on the line: The Texas women's basketball team had its seven-game win streak snapped by the sharp-shooting Iowa State Cyclones, who outscored the Longhorns 24-6 from 3-point land, just a huge differential. Vic Schaefer’s done a tremendous job with seven newcomers and loads of injuries. The ESPN broadcasters said the Longhorns would likely fall from their current projected 3 seed to a 4, right on the cutline of the necessary ranking to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. When I asked Schaefer if he agreed with that assessment on Tuesday, he said, “Who knows? We are down our leading scorer (Sonya Morris is one of three Horns averaging 12 points a game) and still went 2-1 and should have won last night. We need to win out. That will be challenging.” The Horns (11-3 in league play) have four games remaining, including a road trip to Oklahoma (10-3) for the top spot in the Big 12 although Texas beat the Sooners in the first matchup. Texas’ last four opponents are a collective 26-23 in Big 12 play while OU’s opponents are 24-26 although the Sooners have three home games to Texas’ two, one of which is against nemesis Baylor. … Besides its crippling injuries that have sidelined post player Aaliyah Moore (torn ACL) — one of three returning starters — for the year, backup shooting guard Morris currently and Rori Harmon and Taylor Jones for critical games and hurt its depth, Texas’ lack of perimeter shooting remains its Achilles' heel. The Longhorns missed their first 11 deep shots Monday and now rank a lowly 309th out of 350 teams in threes per game (4.2) and are No. 65 in accuracy. Five of the top eight projected seeds all sink six or more triples a game. Utah and Iowa drain eight or more every night. Of course, top-rated South Carolina (4.5) and No. 5 LSU (23-1) don’t need to fire away from long range. And if Texas can’t hurt opponents from behind the arc, it’s going to see a lot more 2-3 zones like Iowa State’s. … It’s a shame because the Horns were rounding into shape before the loss with a 12 NET ranking even though the Associated Press pollsters aren’t giving the No. 17 Longhorns as much credit. Jones and DeYona Gaston are an incredible tandem in the paint. I do worry about the heavy 40-minute workload for Harmon because Schaefer can’t spell her, and Morris’ return from a cryptic lower body injury is iffy after missing three games. “Who knows,” Schaefer said of Morris. “Really hard to say.”

8. This week, He Eludes Me

Scattershooting: While wondering whatever happened to He Hate Me. ... I learned Willis Mackey is a rancher, an education consultant after a long career that included time as superintendent of the Judson school district and chair of an electric and gas utility.

9. Meanwhile, a Tom Hanks excursion

At the box office: Vicki and I both absolutely loved “A Man Called Otto” about a grumpy, old widower who has no filter and no friends. This will tug at your heartstrings. If you don’t love this movie, as Tom Hanks would say, you’re an idiot. Bring tissues. Gave it 9½ ducks.

10. Veni, Verde, vici

Crazy prediction: Austin FC will win the MLS Cup.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: The new-look SEC seems content with staying as the best 16-team league