So long, Big 12.

It’s been nice knowing you.

The Texas Longhorns and the Little Conference That Could agreed to an amicable parting of the ways a couple of years ago, and it’s been some journey while we’ve counted down the months until the divorce became final.

With the softball team losing to Oklahoma on Thursday in the Women’s College World Series and the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships wrapping up Saturday, Texas is no longer competing in the Big 12.

The Horns made their mark in this league, no question. Thirty-two NCAA team titles and 38 runner-up finishes will attest to their overall dominance. Tack on a third Learfield Directors Cup win in the last four years and the Horns are leaving the Big 12 on a high note.

Decathlete/discus thrower Leo Neugebauer and jumper Ackelia Smith added exclamation marks to Texas’ league farewell by defending national outdoor titles at the NCAAs. Neugebauer is a huge favorite to represent Germany in the Summer Olympics in Paris. Smith, who won the long and triple jumps, will likely do the same for Jamaica.

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As for their school conference breakup didn’t have to happen, but the promises of more greenbacks and the ability to compete in the best football league in the country — did I mention the money? — were too much to pass up.

The differences? Sure, they were irreconcilable, especially after Texas and Oklahoma struck a back-alley deal with the Southeastern Conference under the unsuspecting noses of the Big 12 leadership.

As a result, the Horns and Sooners dropped the Big 12 like a bad habit and will enter a game-changing union with the SEC this fall. Better yet, they weren’t required to sign a prenup.

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The schools saw what they deemed as a more attractive option in upgrading to a sexier model, something similar to those Lamborghinis we saw lined up outside Moncrief-Neuhaus, designed to entice young football recruits to commit on the first day for visitors.

Either way, Texas left no doubt as to who has the most complete athletic department in the league — albeit with the understanding that Oklahoma owned football, the sport that mattered most — as it prepares to throw up the deuces when it officially leaves the Big 12 after June 30.

An era to remember

If I had told them in 1996 that Texas would bookend conference football titles in a stay that stretched across four decades, Longhorn fans would have taken it, no questions asked.

Now, the surprise would be that the Horns captured only two more in the 26 years in between. That said, the Big 12 Longhorns produced campus legends Mack Brown, Ricky Williams, Vince Young and Colt McCoy. Mack turned out to be the perfect shepherd into the new millennium, and his players combined for four Heisman Trophy finalist finishes, and Williams in 1998 joined Earl Campbell in immortality with the most coveted individual honor in college sports.

Young will always reside in the hearts of football diehards who were starved for a national championship after a drought of more than three decades. When he danced into the right corner of the end zone at the Rose Bowl on Jan. 4, 2006, the Horns stood atop the college football world, the high point in an incredible Brown-led decade.

And shoot, had Colt not gotten hurt in the opening moments of the title game on the same field four years later, that trophy might have some company.

Augie Garrido led the baseball program back to the top of the mountain with national championships in 2002 and 2005. Rick Barnes and point guard T.J. Ford led the basketball team to the program’s only Final Four appearance in the modern era. It happened in 2003 at the same time the legendary Jody Conradt had the women in the national semifinals.

Conradt produced 2000 Wade winner Edwina Brown, and men’s hoops later gave us freshman phenom Kevin Durant, who joined Ford in 2007 as the only two John Wooden Award winners in school history.

While we respect Kansas’ dominance of the conference in hoops, Texas and Oklahoma are the only Big 12 schools to produce two Wooden Award winners over the past 25 seasons.

Coach Eddie Reese was already getting it down before the Big 12 came along with five national titles, but his swim team grabbed nine of his career 15 national titles during the Big 12 era, including an NCAA three-peat from 2000 to 2002.

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Men’s tennis won it all in 2019. Golf got it done in 2012 and 2022, the latter coming the same year that men’s indoor track brought home the big trophy.

And let’s not overlook the Longhorn Network, which will also shut its doors at the end of June. The school pocketed more than $200 million of ESPN’s money over the past 14 years, but the departure from the Big 12 meant no more LHN.

A small price to pay to move to football’s most prominent conference.

Don’t forget the ladies

It wasn’t all about the fellas.

Cat Osterman never got that elusive national title — the program is still waiting after recent events — but the pitching legend put the program on the map.

The Horns played in three Women’s College World Series behind the four-time All-American, who is arguably the greatest softball player ever to walk onto a field. She was also the first woman at Texas to have her jersey retired, and deservedly so.

What followed was a parade of incredible athletes such as track’s Sanya Richards-Ross, Destinee Hooker — an All-American in volleyball and track — and the incomparable Logan Eggleston, who in 2022 won the AVCA Player of the Year award and powered a second national title in volleyball.

As far as traditional team sports are concerned, give Jerritt Elliott’s volleyball team top billing since it won three national championships in a span of 11 seasons. UT will open the 2024 season this fall with a chance to become the first program to win three straight since Penn State captured four from 2007 to 2010.

Howard Joffe’s tennis team reigned supreme with repeat titles in 2021 and 2022. Women’s track grabbed three outdoor titles in the Big 12 era, with coach Edrick Floréal piloting a 2023 title one year after he led the men to the indoor crown.

Kudos to basketball coach Vic Schaefer for leading the Horns to three Big 12 titles over the past three seasons and three Elite Eight appearances, though the heat will surely get turned up in a new conference occupied by coaching giants Dawn Staley (South Carolina) and Kim Mulkey (LSU).

Nearly going out on top

The softball team’s sweep at the hands of dynastic Oklahoma in the Women’s College World Series finale was the final traditional team competition before the school officially joins the SEC on July 1.

The Horns didn’t win the first softball national title school history but ended their association with the Big 12 in rather impressive fashion over the past school year.

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With Steve Sarkisian firmly in his coaching bag after a 5-7 debut in 2021, the football team went 12-2, won its fourth Big 12 title and made its College Football Playoff debut, losing to Washington.

Dave O’Neill’s rowers captured a third national championship in four years.

Sports Business Journal named Chris Del Conte its national athletic director of the year during its Sports Business Awards last month, a well-deserved honor since the school is in the midst of its second golden era, rivaling the first decade of the 2000s, which produced national titles in football and baseball (two). During his seven years at the helm, the Horns have won Learfield Directors' Cup trophies in 2021 and 2022 and finished in the top five each time. Texas has registered 13 national titles and 15 runner-up finishes under CDC.

And what a school year the Horns just had. All 19 sports advanced to postseason play, volleyball and rowing each captured a natty, and three teams finished as a national runner-up. Texas’ final season in the Big 12 produced 15 conference championships, with 10 teams finishing in the top 10 of postseason play.

Give Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark credit for keeping the conference moving forward with new schools, but the absence of the bluest of blue blood athletic departments cannot be overlooked.

Texas leaves behind a legacy of great success.

Greener pastures await.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas athletics ruled most sports during its decades-long Big 12 era