Texas and Oklahoma are joining the SEC in the summer of 2024, which gives the two schools about a year before they discover, suddenly, like a rash, a new burning sensation called Birmingham.

The cowboy hat is coming for the SEC, and it will be an odd fit for a time. Originally, the plan was for Texas and Oklahoma to join the league in 2025, but the Big 12 is ending its contract with the two powerhouses a year early. I still don’t know how I feel about all this. It’s exciting, though, and it’s one of the biggest stories in the history of the conference that is now the undisputed king of college football.

But every kingdom has its sudden outbreaks of corruption, and scurvy tricks. In the SEC, they all say the itch of deceit is localized.

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The time and place for a rash of Birmingham can never be predicted, but we all know that fleshly manifestation of fear and hate is coming for the Sooners and Longhorns. It’s the only rite of passage that SEC rivals can celebrate together while also wishing individual ruin and suffering against each other. Birmingham, home of the SEC headquarters, is where the league’s replay officials operate like wizards behind the curtain and plot against your team and only your team and only when they play Alabama.

Just ask LSU.

There was some doubt about the Big 12 finalizing its divorce with Texas and Oklahoma in time for the 2024 season, but Archie Manning made a call. Assuming Arch Manning doesn’t pull a reverse DKR and transfer to Mississippi State next season on a fat NIL deal, the grandson of the Ole Miss legend will have at least two seasons in the SEC as Texas’ quarterback.

For the uninitiated in the SEC, “DKR” stands for Darrell K Royal. He won three national championships with Texas. The legendary coach was from Oklahoma and got his start in Stark Vegas. His name is now on the stadium where freshman quarterback Arch Manning will begin playing in 2023.

We’re still more than a year away from a Southeastern Conference that just means more teams and already worlds are colliding. That’s because the real motto of the SEC is this: recruit or die. No one recruits better than Alabama and Georgia, but Texas is coming and everyone else better sharpen their knives. Arch Manning chose coach Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns over Nick Saban and Alabama. It was nothing personal, of course. The Mannings built their family name off of beating Alabama, so it’s a tradition. Crazy but true: the combined win-loss record of Quarterbacks Manning against Alabama is 7-2.

Alabama, meanwhile, is 2-7-1 all-time against Texas, so Birmingham has some work to do. Auburn is 0-2 against Oklahoma, but the Sooners will learn quickly that Birmingham is gonna Birmingham and paint a nice big Birmingham all over that future last-second loss at Jordan-Hare Stadium. We all know it’s coming.

Whether current Oklahoma coach Brent Venables will be around to experience the misery of Birmingham remains to be seen. Venables is entering his second season with OU, but his team had a record of 6-7 overall and 3-6 in the Big 12 in 2022. What’s worse is that Oklahoma lost to Texas 49-0 in the Red River Showdown. Venables could have been at Auburn, but now he’ll be sweating in the torturous SEC hot seat before even joining the league.

That’s gotta be some kind of record.

I’ll give him half a season to fix things or he’s gone.

What makes the SEC different? It’s the fans. They’re the craziest in the country, and they demand the best at all times. In fandom, Oklahoma and Texas are perfect fits for this league. When the 16-team super show kicks off in 2024, there will be 14 fan bases that think they can win the national championship. Vanderbilt will be studying for an exam, and Kentucky will be waiting for basketball season to begin.

And who’s Jalen Hurts gonna pull for when Alabama plays Oklahoma? He’s in a real pickle.

Texas has the money and Oklahoma has the magic. That’s what they say. Alabama has Saban, and he’s 71 years old. He’ll turn 73 during the 2024 season, and so now the question becomes whether the coach who once declined an offer from Texas will remain on the sidelines long enough to share a conference with the team he pulled into the SEC.

The league will say that everyone wins thanks to the addition of these new teams, but I don’t know if that’s true. The tradition of a two-division conference will be lost after this upcoming season, and maybe some annual rivalries will be broken, too. A one-division model is coming, and probably a nine-game conference schedule. How these new dynamics affect competition is anyone’s guess.

I can feel the power struggle of the SEC already shifting west, however, and a new world order forming like a confederacy of cowboys. Maybe I’m just coming down with a touch of SEC paranoia, though. It’s like a mild case of Birmingham.

More of a dry rash than full-on hot and humid.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’”. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.