SEC won’t penalize use of ‘Horns Down’ gesture

DALLAS — Texas arrives for its first appearance at SEC media days Wednesday, but an old Longhorns storyline preceded them a day prior.

SEC coordinator of officials John McDaid was asked if “Horns Down,” the taunting gesture employed by Texas foes, would be a penalty as it often was in the Big 12, where it fell under the definition of unsportsmanlike conduct.

In the SEC’s case, it doesn’t pass the mall test.

“The act itself needs to be offending to the senses,” McDaid said. “If you took that act out of a football stadium and did it in a shopping mall or a grocery store, would it offend the senses to a majority of the reasonable people in the area? That signal would not. You might have some people that share that signal with you, if you did that at a grocery store or a shopping mall, depending where you are. We’re going to evaluate it in context.”

The Longhorns have not officially pushed back on any of the “Horns Down” discussion in recent years. In January, Texas basketball coach Rodney Terry apologized after getting heated and calling UCF players “classless” when they taunted Texas players with the sign after the game. But football coach Steve Sarkisian has leaned into the enmity, saying his team’s mantra last year was “embrace the hate.” Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte has said he considers the gesture a compliment to be on the minds of opponents.

And with all new opponents — including revived rivalries with Texas A&M and Arkansas — they’re likely to see it a lot more. McDaid said he hasn’t heard anything from Texas about it, and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said Monday that any questions about Texas’ past influence over conference boardrooms is a nonissue.

“[Texas and Oklahoma] are now part of a conference with peer athletic programs and peer universities, so they’ll fit, and we’ll fit together, the 16,” Sankey said.

On Tuesday, Oklahoma safety Billy Bowman Jr. said he wasn’t sure what the big deal was about the issue.

“It shouldn’t be a penalty anyway,” Bowman said. “Everyone has a hand signal. If you let a hand signal affect you and affect the game, maybe you shouldn’t be there.”

So it appears the issue is settled in the SEC.

“It’s not taunting, it’s not making a travesty of the game, it’s not affecting our ability to manage the game,” McDaid said.