What a wild 30 hours or so...keeping up with this thread is challenging while trying to get some work done but I'll chime in with a few thoughts:
1. This is a business decision, pure and simple...as almost everything is. What is great for UT at this time is that you have a chairman and University president aligned with the understanding that the business of college athletics is important and a school that thinks it is one of the best in the country should excel on both sides of that ledger. In addition, they seem to understand as it relates to football that culturally, football is very important to the state of Texas and the flagship school should be at the top of heap given the sport's cultural importance to the citizens it is supposed to cater to as a public institution. With the landscape changing quickly because of NIL and other factors, this is the right move at the right time and bringing our long time rival along to cement the deal makes it a no brainer for any conference. No way the SEC passes on this opportunity and they will tell A&M to go sit in timeout while the adults make the decisions. If A&M tries any chicanery, there will be hell to pay.
2. The eventual admission of UT and OU to the SEC will create a new football "country" in this land - The Football States of America (FSA), which will now wield more power than the Big 10 aligned NCAA will have. A new Mason-Dixon line of sorts in college athletics (closely paralleling the old one ironically). Its an absolute threat to the Big 10 which will now figure out how to align with and "bail out" the PAC-10. Won't be a merger, but there will be something done to counter the SEC's move. The ACC sits in an interesting spot, but I bet they begin to align more closely with the SEC as the football powers that be are squarely in or in close proximity to the new SEC footprint.
3. While I feel for the conference mates that get left behind, as the great Don Corleone said, its not personal, its business. This shit happens in the real world all the time..top people from companies always upgrade when they see an opportunity and it is usually because they economically benefit. Companies like to tout "culture, culture, culture" all the time, but the reality is the big players go where the dollars are 99+% of the time. This is no different. However, I do see landing spots for OSU, ISU, the Kansas schools, WVU, and even Tech. They all got big $ while the Big 12 was together, especially after the initial defections and almost all of them have done significant upgrades (well, except for maybe KU) to their facilities to get them in position for this point. Even if in the early round of this there aren't spots...there will be some opening up in short order. Watch the ACC...they have some smaller schools (looking at you BC, Duke, and Wake) who might not want to play in the new NIL sandbox which will drive the cost of competing in college athletics much higher. Yes, even Duke who has to wonder what will happen when Coach K retires. We are moving towards a 64 or 72 high level football league and if schools are willing to do what it takes to commit to it, there will be a spot in the big leagues. I think ISU, KSU, KU, WVU, OSU and Tech are willing. Baylor and TCU think they are...we will see.
4. A&M's schadenfreude is glorious to watch but at the end of the day it is their own fucking fault that they still don't have a brand identity separate and apart from Texas (which is what the whining is really about). They had a decade head start but because they tied their identity more to the conference than their own school, they fucked up. And if you push your Ag friends on this point, anyone with a half a brain would have to concede that point. John Sharp going around trying to cut deals with SEC schools like this is the 1980's Texas government...good luck with that. Legislature going to bail you out by threatening to cut UT's funding? State's population has almost doubled since the formation of the Big 12 and a state trying to promote STEM and tech companies moving here, etc,. etc., isn't going to cut the knees of its best public university and best state school system because Jethro from BFE East Texas, Carter from Levelland, or Josiah from the suburbs of Waco living in a Magnolia renovated house don't think its fair that Texas can just up and change conferences without their consent.
This should be fun...