This is an opinion column.

You have to give the Horns their props. They know how to throw a hoedown. They threw quite a party Sunday night to mark their official July 1 introduction to the Southeastern Conference, with Sark and Schloss chopping it up on the 40 Acres with Commissioner Sankey and AD CDC – aka Chris Del Conte – beaming after stealing Texas A&M’s thunder, swiping its baseball coach and snatching its poor Aggie soul.

Texas went first, which is where Texas thinks it belongs – all evidence to the contrary – but Oklahoma will join the party today with a boot-scootin’ bash of its own in Norman. It Just Means More means the SEC is now bigger, bolder and more flush with cash than ever with 16 members.

It’s also more wide-open than ever in football, the sport where it hangs its 10-gallon hat, with no more Nick Saban around to rain on everyone else’s wannabe victory parades.

The real Welcome to the SEC moments for Texas and Oklahoma won’t come for some time. In the kind of gift the Longhorns came to expect from the Big 12, they won’t play a true SEC road game until Oct. 26 at Vanderbilt … I mean Nov. 16 at Arkansas … wait, no, it’s Nov. 30 at Texas A&M.

Somebody’s eyes were smiling on Steve Sarkisian and company because that has to be the softest conference road schedule the SEC could’ve served up. The fourth “road” game has Texas as the “visitor” in Dallas in the Red River Rivalry against Oklahoma.