Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian shut down any inkling of Texas football seeking possible replacements for next season’s Ohio State game and 2027’s Michigan game during his media availability on Wednesday.
“We’re going to honor Ohio State and Michigan,” Sarkisan said. “We’re going to honor those return trips. So for the next two years, we know what our non-conference schedule is going to look like and that’s the right thing to do.”
The decision should not come as a surprise, due to the time constraints Texas would endure in finding another Power Four opponent to satisfy the new parameters set forth by the Southeastern Conference.
When the SEC switched to a nine-game conference schedule for 2026 and beyond, the league outlined that teams must play “one additional high-quality non-conference opponent” every season, i.e., teams from the ACC, Big Ten or Big 12. The days of the SEC playing an entire non-conference slate full of “cupcakes” are a thing of the past.
Furthermore, if Texas did find another opponent to slot in for Ohio State and Michigan, the Longhorns would likely be on the road for those games. It would be unlikely for another Power Four opponent to let go of a home game early in the season.
While the Longhorns are locked in with the Buckeyes and Wolverines for the next two seasons, the 2028-2029 home-home series with Notre Dame may be in jeopardy. According to Sarkisian, he and Texas Athletics Director Chris Del Conte have begun conversations about reevaluating the future non-conference schedule.
“(Del Conte) and I’ve already had that discussion; we need to take a good, hard look at what our non-conference schedule looks like beyond the next two years, because so much of the non-conference scheduling was when we were in the Big 12,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve got to be mindful of how the committee is going to evaluate to put the best teams into the College Football Playoff now.”
Although Hunter Yurachek, the University of Arkansas Athletic Director and chair of the playoff committee, claimed the Longhorns’ Florida loss hurt them more than their loss to Ohio State, the decision to rank the team at No. 13 on Tuesday night showed the college football world that record matters more to the committee than the strength of opponents.
It’s hard to argue that if Texas followed the trends of its SEC brethren — scheduling cupcake teams from the Group of Five — a 10–2 Texas would likely have been in the playoff, even with a loss to a lowly Florida squad.
It was one of the points during head coach Steve Sarkisian’s media blitz for his team early this week.
“If we’re a 10–2 team right now, that played four top-10 ranked opponents with three wins still in the top-10,we’re not even having a discussion right now,” head coach Steve Sarkisian said on SiriusXM College Sports Radio. “We’re probably ranked sixth in the country, in the CFP, to my point, why in the hell are we going to play (Ohio State) next year?”
As it stands currently, the Longhorns are locked into the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl against Michigan in Orlando, Florida. The CFP committee will make its final decision this Sunday following the conclusion of Conference Championship week.