I watched it a bit last night. I hear Doering on XM a lot. His demeanor actually changes when Texas is discussed. The SEC is in his blood as a walk-on fanboy who made it big for the gators from Gainesville and a dyed-in-the-wool SEC family that includes coaches. His career is covering the SEC. Texas having immediate success is an existential threat for who he is. Like, really, this is his life we’re fucking with here, somewhere in his subconscious. I listened to him one day talking about OU basically being a good boy for following their expected rite of passage by “not being ready for big boy SEC football” and now they’re suddenly figuring it out by finding an “SEC ready QB and OC”. What’s funny is what isn’t said - that Texas didn’t have to do that and it irks him to a high degree. It’s no coincidence that he’s talking up OU now. He fucking needs them to be good and for Texas to have a comeuppance.
A lot of these SEC talking heads have similar backgrounds. Stinchcomb, Peter Burns, Alyssa Lang, Kubilic, Hester, etc. Hester, Lang, and Kubilic are great and they’re not big honks strictly for the SEC either. Hester has openly admitted he thought long and hard about going to Texas, which is true for those of us who were following back then. McElroy has admitted many times that he grew up loving Texas and all but says they’re one of his favorite teams. He was giddy about Texas joining the SEC.
Many of these guys are far less biased. A few of them, however, fucking hate everything about Texas and what they’ve done so far. Doering is the lead dog on that front. It’s a DNA level thing for him because of his home grown biases about SEC sports, particularly football, and any challenge to his long held beliefs are a religious issue. He cannot say good things about Texas unless there’s a “but” and usually he just doesn’t say anything level or positive.