Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte and Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione are no strangers to each other, as peers and, moreover, rivals. But while their jobs dictate a certain amount of acrimony when it comes to on-field matters, the two are actually rather close in their own lives. And as two friends do, the pair consistently trade messages and calls back and forth. And at some point in 2022, those messages started to center around a reality they both soon came to terms with: They felt they needed to take their programs out of the Big 12, and into the SEC. “And we knew there was…