Oklahoma softball: SEC is not only about football, its also a talent-rich softball league
By Chip Rouse
Three Big 12 teams, including the Oklahoma softball team, were awarded three of the top-five overall seeds in this year's NCAA Softball Championship.
The Sooners will take the No. 2 seed into this year's postseason with Texas earning the No. 1 seed. Oklahoma State is the No. 5 national seed. Next season both the Sooners and Longhorns will be switching conference allegiance and competing in the SEC, a conference that is even more competitive top to bottom than the Big 12.
All 13 SEC teams made it into the 64-team NCAA Tournament field. Eight of the 13 will host regional games this weekend as the top-16 national seeds. And if you add Texas and Oklahoma to that mix, 10 of the top-16 seeds are represented by current and future SEC teams.
Based on history, Oklahoma should do fairly well in the SEC. The Sooners have an overall record of 112-36 against teams from the Southeastern Conference. OU is 25-2 against Arkansas, their best mark against an SEC opponent and is 10-1 versus Kentucky and 10-0 against Texas A&M, a former Big 12 team. The only SEC team. The only SEC team with a winning record against the Sooners is Alabama, which is 10-8 all-time against Oklahoma. Georgia is 4-4 in eight games against OU.
Nine of the last 11 Women's College World Series champions have been either Oklahoma (6) or two SEC teams (Florida twice and Alabama)
The addition of Oklahoma and Texas after this season will only make an already strong softball conference even stronger and the intense recruiting battles for the best talent the country has to offer that much more competitive.