I think you are right to a point and I am not sure that even the officials at Texas where aware of the changes that were about to happen with court ruling in favor of OU and UGA.
Among the things that killed the SWC were geography, backward thinking, and then the members turning on each other with the cheating scandals in which over half the conference on probation.
Leadership in the SWC offices did not see the potential impact of television with the conferences now having control of the tv contracts and the wiling partner in ESPN which had begun in 1979 and pretty much was lumber jack games, strong men contests, and college basketball.
Florida State and Miami were two schools who benefited from the ability to use television as a marketing tools and it seemed like FSU would play anyone, anytime, anywhere, as long as that game was broadcast on national television, often on ESPN.
MIami was a small private with no real history of success who used the exposure for winning a surprise NC that was a byproduct of the poll's deciding the title and a bad Osborne decision to garner attention and they used the media coverage to create a brand out of basically nothing. Their facilities were shit, they played in a dump, they didn't always draw or have huge budget, but TV built a brand.
The SWC was run by idiot who couldn't changed partnered with the Cotton Bowl run by Hoss Brock who was dumber and more resistant to change. Remember that the the big 4 January 1 bowl games were Sugar, Orange, Rose and Cotton. The Fiesta was bowl played around Christmas with no history and no big conference tie in until that lawsuit and some ambitious progressive thinking people while the Cotton Bowl didn't change and the SWC went to shit.
Baylor and SMU were trying at football, TCU didn't try until Wacker and then he blew it all up with the NCAA. Rice, well Rice is Rice so to say the privates were being dead weight isn't completely true.
The SWC was going to fail and I don't blame for Texas or anyone else looking for a way out. The one that should have made it was the Big 12 and I will let people debate that one as we were wandering through various conferences during those days. I do suspect the same problem that plagued the SWC killed the Big 12 and that was a lack of future vision.