Apologies in advance for not knowing the winner of the Texas-Ohio State playoff semifinal before deadline.

But, either way, the Longhorns were the last Southeastern Conference team standing, the burnt orange carrying the flag, holding the rope so to speak, for the SEC against this attempted Midwest takeover of college football.

You didn’t hear a whole lot of that S-E-C!! S-E-C!! chanting going on.

It’s awkward. It’s confusing.

The mighty conference has had its pride bruised a little already with a shoddy showing in the playoffs (two one-and-dones) and a lackluster run through the traditional bowl season — 6-4, including embarrassing losses by the Alabama and South Carolina teams that did the most squawking that they were slighted when the playoff field was announced without them.

It’s a league prone to beat￾ing its own chest, not above taunting and strutting on occasion, even with scattered outbreaks of preening.

The rest of the college football world, of course, is enjoying this downturn immensely.

It has always been a great mystery to the rest of college football how the SEC teams, no matter how much they despise each other during head-to-head warfare, can suddenly stick together against outside agitators.

Kind of like a disjointed but loyal family.

Your Michigans and Washingtons and whatnot are baffled by it. Sure, they like to win. But they don’t give a big hoot in Havana what their conference cohorts are up to.

Yet any time they get on the wrong side of a scoreboard against an SEC team, particularly in the postseason, at some point as the clock winds down they’re going to be tortured by the conference war cry — “S-E-C!! S-E-C!! S-E-C!!”

Sometimes you’ll see the outsiders looking around in bewilderment when the budding chant is still faint — what IS that? — with the looks turning to terror as the jingle gains momentum and decibel power. Music to the SEC’s ears, fingernails on the chalkboard to rest of college football.

That never happens in their conference.

You don’t hear a lot of Go, Big Ten! caterwauling from Iowa and Minnesota fans living vicariously through Ohio State’s exploits.

It seems to be SEC specific. The schools’ fans have grown accustomed to living in the center of the college football universe and don’t mind breast-beating about it.

So, of course, the rest of the country has been enjoying this shift of power immensely, even if it’s a temporary reprieve. They’re getting a good chuckle out of Tennessee being trounced by Ohio State after Vol Nation threatened to take over the Buckeyes’ horseshoe stadium.

Georgia’s quarterfinal loss to Notre Dame was likely even more fun because it revolved mostly around the Bulldogs’ own pratfalls.

So it was left to your Texas Longhorns to stand alone — worse, standing alongside the ever-annoying Matt McConaughey — carrying the SEC banner.

Somehow, that just doesn’t sound right.

It’s awkward. At best it will take some getting used to. Did the Longhorns even know the S-E-C chant?

This is their first year in the SEC — and just when people were finally getting used to the notion that Missouri was a card-carrying member.

Did the other SEC fans know the Longhorns well enough to get behind their cause?

Probably so. Missouri might can sneak in unnoticed, but that’s not the Longhorns’ style.

Even when Texas isn’t running college football, the Longhorns think — nay, feel, it’s their duty — that they should be.

The Big 12, from whence Texas hit the team portal, had warned the SEC.

They’ll barge in and think they own the joint, you heard, with nothing getting approved without the Longhorn rubber stamp. Turn your back for one moment and, next thing you know, they’ll hook up their own Longhorn Network.

The SEC wasn’t worried. The Longhorn Network got shut down on the day Texas in the SEC became official.

The SEC doesn’t work like that — no matter which school might get on a hot run on the field, the structure has remained a true democracy, with all having a voice.

Maybe Texas realizes that — or maybe the bullying rumors were unfounded.

But now Texas, which didn’t even have time for a proper introduction, was the last SEC school standing. Don’t give the Longhorns any ideas, the old Big 12 would tell you.

At least the ’Horns didn’t win the conference — Georgia did that, beating UT twice along the way. But it’s the deeper postseason run that tends to be remembered.

So did their SEC brethren care enough to join the Texas cause just for conference pride and bragging rights?

Decisions, decisions …

It’s a strange new football world we live in.
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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com