'Bring your A-game.' Are Oklahoma, Texas ready for the SEC? Let Mizzou tell the story | Toppmeyer

While Missouri prepared for its first season as SEC members in 2012, Tigers wide receiver T.J. Moe uniquely explained his anticipation for the league: “They say girls are prettier here, the air is fresher and toilet paper is thicker,” Moe said in one of the more memorable lines ever uttered at SEC media days.

Eleven years later, was Moe onto something?

“People want to be there, and they want to play there and they want to measure themselves against the SEC. So, you’re right, T.J. Moe,” former Missouri athletics director Mike Alden said recently, after I reminded him of Moe’s quip.

The SEC is once again preparing to grow with two more Big 12 defectors.

Oklahoma and Texas officials will attend the SEC spring meetings, which begin Tuesday in Miramar Beach, Florida. The two schools can’t vote on issues yet, but their presence will mark a segue into their new conference. The SEC will be at 16 strong come 2024.

Former Missouri coach Gary Pinkel described the SEC adding these two premier Big 12 brands as “a mammoth move” that “made a statement.”

But are OU and Texas ready to make a statement in the SEC? Missouri showed it's possible.

Respect SEC competition, but don't put it on a pedestal

As a college student attending Truman State in Kirksville, Missouri, I watched from afar as Pinkel led Missouri to its peak Big 12 success. The Tigers won 40 games during four seasons from 2007-10. I later got a closer look at Pinkel’s Tigers while working as a sportswriter for the Columbia Daily Tribune during Pinkel’s final seasons.  

Pinkel and Missouri made the conference switch look seamless. The SEC East wasn’t packing its fiercest punch when Missouri joined. Tennessee was down, Florida was down, and Georgia wasn’t what it would become under Kirby Smart.

Missouri stormed in and won the SEC East in its second season in the conference before repeating as division winners in 2014.

While Pinkel describes the SEC as “the greatest league in college football,” he’s bullish about Texas and Oklahoma’s prospects for success.

“I think both teams will do well. I think they fit in with the upper third (of the SEC), whatever those upper third are. People move in and out of (the upper third) all the time,” Pinkel told me recently. “The league went for the best. That’s the attitude of (the SEC).”

Pinkel shared two pieces of wisdom about the transition. One, prepare for physicality. “Tackle to tackle, even the average teams are really good up front,” he said. Georgia’s repeat national championship teams were the epitome of how dominant an SEC team can be in the trenches.

Pinkel’s other insight: As robust as the conference is, don’t put it on a pedestal. He believes he did that in Missouri’s first year in the SEC and thinks that negatively affected the Tigers’ performance.

“I wanted to let them know that this isn’t a normal league. I’m responsible to do that. But, I might have done it too great of an extent,” Pinkel said.

After meeting with his captains before the 2013 season, Pinkel course-corrected. The program embraced an attitude of: Let’s go play.

Missouri’s cumulative conference winning percentage in 11 SEC seasons is .456. Its conference winning percentage in 16 years in the Big 12 was .488. In other words, the SEC has proved tougher on Missouri, on average, but not drastically so. And Pinkel’s retirement after the 2015 season might have as much to do with that trend as the conference switch.

Texas A&M joined the SEC in the same year as Missouri. Its conference winning percentage within the SEC is .539, after a .527 winning percentage in Big 12 play.

SEC success requires urgency and cohesion

Alden summarized the SEC mentality in a single word: urgency.

From facilities projects to field maintenance to staff moves to the university’s healthcare system, this conference calls for heightened urgency.

“To be successful, you’ve got to have all hands on deck – and I mean way outside of athletics,” said Alden, who was instrumental in shepherding Missouri into the SEC. He retired in 2015 after 17 years as AD.

Alden is curious how Texas will transition.

The Longhorns wielded an oversized sword in Big 12. They launched their own television network in 2011. That became point of contention within the Big 12, as did the conference's unequal revenue distribution. The Longhorn Network will sunset to coincide with Texas’ pivot into the SEC.

“That’s the amazing thing about the SEC. Everyone in that room has an equal seat the table, and Texas is not used to that,” Alden said. “That is absolutely not in their DNA, so I’ll be interested to see how they’re able to adapt.”

Texas and Oklahoma each had a hand in Missouri joining the SEC. The Longhorns were part of a Big 12 six-pack that flirted with the Pac-12 in 2010. Texas stayed put but continued to cast a long shadow in the Big 12, and realignment wheels were in motion.

Colorado left for the Pac-12, and Nebraska moved to the Big Ten. A year later, the SEC scooped up Texas A&M in 2011.

In September 2011, OU President David Boren announced that the Sooners did not plan to be "a wallflower" amid realignment. Boren’s comment set off alarm bells at Missouri.

“At least from our perspective, there was no trust (within the Big 12),” Alden said.

Two months later, it became official. Missouri was SEC bound.

Now, OU and Texas prepare to reunite with the Tigers and Aggies in the SEC.

“You better bring your A-game,” Pinkel said.

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

If you enjoy Blake’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it. Also, check out his podcast, SEC Football Unfiltered, or access exclusive columns via the SEC Unfiltered.