Texas and Notre Dame can do us all a favor and go toe-to-toe in three seasons. Methinks it has everything to do with a few high-level meetings in the Metroplex than anything between the lines.
Anyone up for College Football Playoff expansion?
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Of course we’re up for it. More playoff games equal more fun. We’re just waiting on the decision makers to set egos aside and serve the greater good.
Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte walks off the field after the Texas Longhorns’ game against the Sam Houston State Bearkats at Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Sept. 20, 2025.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
We all agree that college football is at its absolute finest when the big dogs are barking at one another in the same backyard early in the season as opposed to beating up on Yorkies in nonconference. So give us Arch Manning vs. CJ Carr. Give us Steve Sarkisian vs. Marcus Freeman. Give us prime time at DKR with wings, nachos and a few adult libations if we’re so inclined.
With that said, we can assume nothing.
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MORE CED: Not always pretty but Texas basketball is rolling toward NCAAs
Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte doesn’t make any moves without thinking first. Sometimes, things need to play out before action is required, especially when it comes to the money machine that is Texas football. With the revelation that Texas won’t be playing Arizona State in 2032 and 2033 after all, the question that immediately followed was future matchups against programs much bigger than the Sun Devils — football factories like Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame.
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Well, Ohio State is on and poppin’ for Sept. 12 and the Wolverines are rolling into the 512 on Sept. 11, 2027 — Texas visited those teams’ stadiums over the last two seasons — but that Notre Dame home-and-home series scheduled for 2028 and 2029 remains up in the air.
Neither CDC nor Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua will make any huge announcements over these next 10 months because college football, through its own doing, plunged the playoff system into a waiting game, mainly because the SEC and the Big Ten — the two most powerful leagues in the sport — couldn’t come to an agreement on how many teams to add to the existing 12-team bracket.
Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) catches a snap in the first quarter of the Citrus Bowl against the Michigan Wolverines at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida, Dec. 31, 2025.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
Del Conte, who’s in favor of increasing the field, was diplomatic and pragmatic at the same time on this week’s “On Second Thought” podcast, but it was obvious that any talk of the Notre Dame series isn’t likely to happen without expansion. Plus, the current TV deal with ESPN, which expires in 2033, will be up for negotiation, adding more spice to the mix.
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Del Conte said he’s trying not to schedule games past the 2030 season because he wants to keep his options open.
“I’m looking at what does the future look like?” Del Conte said. “What does the expansion of the playoff look like if that happens? What does our new ecosystem look like? So instead of being like it used to be where it was ‘Let me schedule teams 10 years out … Oh yeah, let’s be a little bit more nimble right now because of the unknown.’”
MORE HORNS: Odds of Texas winning a national title
With Texas getting a seventh home game this fall as the SEC expands its schedule to nine conference games, the financial impact cannot be overstated. So expansion could mean even bigger bucks in the future, especially if Notre Dame and Texas end up getting busy.
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“The regular-season economics are so critical to our enterprise,” Del Conte said. “However, the postseason tournament is where you want to be. So as we’re in this situation, in my belief, if you expand the playoff, you strengthen the regular season. Because you expand the playoff, and all of a sudden people are like, they’re not afraid to have big games in the regular season.”
Expansion is coming because the money is just too big to ignore. When? That’s the bigger question.
The guess is we’ll get more playoff teams in 2027 and we can all strap up and get ready for the Longhorns vs. Irish.
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Texas Longhorns head coach Vic Schaefer stands alongside Texas Longhorns guard Rori Harmon (3) as she is recognized as the Texas women’s basketball program’s all-time leader in steals before Texas takes on Kentucky at The Moody Center in Austin Monday, Feb. 9, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Vic Schaefer went too far after Vanderbilt loss (and he knows it)
No basketball coach in America is hungrier for a national championship than Texas women’s basketball’s Vic Schaefer, who coached in two national championship games at Mississippi State and led the Horns to the 2025 national semifinals. But sometimes that fiery passion can give way to poor judgment.
MORE HORNS: Texas tennis rolls to national title
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Schaefer railed publicly against his team after its road loss to Vanderbilt. “We have no heart,” he said before adding this Texas squad is “probably the softest team I’ve had in years.”
Can’t help but wonder what he said before the cooling period.
No one knows a team better than the head coach, but Schaefer went a bit too curmudgeon and crossed the line in what were apparently comments meant to motivate his players. Whatever you say in a locker room behind closed doors is between you and your players, but when you say it to thousands of interested onlookers, it’s an invitation to bad fallout.
Let’s keep it straight up like 12:30. The Horns lost to the most electric scorer in the game in Vandy’s Mikayla Blakes, but that doesn’t make them soft or heartless. Something was beating in those chests when they knocked off No. 3 UCLA and No. 2 South Carolina — teams that are both in line for a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament — on consecutive nights in Las Vegas in November. And what of the 13-point beatdown of then No. 4 LSU two weeks ago?
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Texas didn’t get to 24-3 and No. 4 in the country entering Thursday’s game at Arkansas with a yellow stripe down its back. Schaefer knows as much.
During his extended Nashville rant, he told reporters that he was planning to call Del Conte and apologize for his team’s performance. Schaefer did make that call, but his reasoning changed, according to the AD.
“(Schaefer) called me to say (he) was wrong,” said Del Conte, who affectionately calls the 64-year-old Schaefer “Uncle Vic.” “He said it’s never too late to learn. Kids don’t want to be wanted. They want to be needed. Coach is an old-school coach and he loves those girls dearly and has a great culture in that room.”
The Texas AD and coach spoke at the men’s win over LSU and Del Conte gave some sage advice. “Don’t apologize for delivering the message, but your locker room needs to know you love them,” he told Schaefer.
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Star forward Madison Booker happened by and looked up at Del Conte.
“We got this, CDC!” the Longhorns’ All-American said with a smile.
Schaefer said he loves his players more than anyone outside their families after Texas turned back upset-minded Tennessee.
“This team has a ton of heart,” he added. “We just didn’t play with any (against Vanderbilt) in my opinion.”
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If only he had put it that way in Nashville. There’s a fine line between tough love and risking dissension in family dynamics by speaking too emotionally in front of company.
It’s a Final Four-caliber team that could win it all because it does have heart and it does have toughness, even in losses. But even the heartiest, toughest teams sometimes run into an opponent that happens to be better that night. Just ask Vanderbilt. Days after toppling Texas, the No. 5 Commodores lost 76-74 at No. 9 Georgia.
There are certain words and phrases that you can’t take back and even if these players win a national title, they’ll always remember the night their head coach threw them under a fleet of Greyhounds. Perhaps, while the confetti is dripping, they will say he sparked them. Or they won’t.
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I do agree with Schaefer about one thing. One is never too old to learn something.
Even great coaches can go too far.