{"id":172815,"date":"2026-02-20T12:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/172815\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T12:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:12:08","slug":"amid-cfp-uncertainty-why-the-texas-vs-notre-dame-series-must-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/172815\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid CFP uncertainty, why the Texas vs Notre Dame series must happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas<\/a> 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Anyone up for College Football Playoff <\/a>expansion?<\/p>\n

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Of course we’re up for it.\u00a0 More playoff games equal more fun. We’re just waiting on the decision makers to set egos aside and serve the greater good.<\/p>\n

\"Texas<\/p>\n

Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte walks off the field after the Texas Longhorns\u2019 game against the Sam Houston State Bearkats at Darrell K Royal\u2013Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Sept. 20, 2025.<\/p>\n

Sara Diggins\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n

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,\u00a0nachos and a few adult libations if we’re so inclined.<\/p>\n

With that said, we can assume nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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MORE CED: Not always pretty but Texas basketball is rolling toward NCAAs<\/a><\/p>\n

Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte <\/a>doesn\u2019t 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\u00a0won\u2019t be playing Arizona State<\/a> in 2032 and 2033 after all, the question that immediately followed was future matchups against programs much bigger than the Sun Devils \u2014 football factories like Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame.<\/p>\n

Sign up for\u00a0Ced’s Corner<\/p>\n

Sign up for Cedric Golden’s weekly newsletter <\/a>which drops each Tuesday with hot takes from the unique perspective of the Statesman’s resident sports columnist who was named the 2025 National Sports Media Association’s Texas sportswriter of the year.<\/p>\n

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Well, Ohio State is on and poppin\u2019 for Sept. 12 and the Wolverines are rolling into the 512 on Sept. 11, 2027 \u2014 Texas visited those teams’ stadiums over the last two seasons \u2014 but that Notre Dame home-and-home series scheduled for 2028 and 2029 remains up in the air.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 the two most powerful leagues in the sport \u2014 couldn\u2019t come to an agreement on how many teams to add to the existing 12-team bracket.<\/p>\n

\"Texas<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Sara Diggins\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n

Del Conte, who’s in favor of increasing the field, was diplomatic and pragmatic at the same time on this week\u2019s “On Second Thought” podcast, but it was obvious that any talk of the Notre Dame series isn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m looking at what does the future look like?\u201d Del Conte said. \u201cWhat 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 \u2018Let me schedule teams 10 years out \u2026 Oh yeah, let’s be a little bit more nimble right now because of the unknown.’\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE HORNS: Odds of Texas winning a national title<\/a><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe regular-season economics are so critical to our enterprise,\u201d Del Conte said. \u201cHowever, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expansion is coming because the money is just too big to ignore. When? That\u2019s the bigger question.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Texas<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n

Vic Schaefer went too far after Vanderbilt loss (and he knows it)<\/p>\n

No basketball coach in America is hungrier for a national championship than Texas women\u2019s basketball’s\u00a0Vic Schaefer<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

MORE HORNS: Texas tennis rolls to national\u00a0 title<\/a><\/p>\n

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Schaefer railed publicly against his team after its road loss to Vanderbilt<\/a>. \u201cWe have no heart,\u201d he said before adding this Texas squad is \u201cprobably the softest team I\u2019ve had in years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t help but wonder what he said before the cooling period.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s an invitation to bad fallout.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s keep it straight up like 12:30. The Horns lost to the most electric scorer in the game in Vandy\u2019s Mikayla Blakes, but that doesn\u2019t make them soft or heartless. Something was beating in those chests when they knocked off No. 3 UCLA and No. 2 South Carolina<\/a> \u2014 teams that are both in line for a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament \u2014 on consecutive nights in Las Vegas in November. And what of the 13-point beatdown of then No. 4 LSU two weeks ago?<\/p>\n

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Texas didn\u2019t get to 24-3 and No. 4 in the country entering Thursday\u2019s game at Arkansas with a yellow stripe down its back. Schaefer knows as much.<\/p>\n

During his extended Nashville rant, he told reporters that he was planning to call Del Conte and apologize for his team\u2019s performance. Schaefer did make that call, but his reasoning changed, according to the AD.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Schaefer) called me to say (he) was wrong,\u201d said Del Conte, who affectionately calls the 64-year-old Schaefer “Uncle Vic.” \u201cHe said it\u2019s never too late to learn. Kids don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Texas AD and coach spoke at the men\u2019s win over LSU<\/a> and Del Conte gave some sage advice. \u201cDon\u2019t apologize for delivering the message, but your locker room needs to know you love them,\u201d he told Schaefer.<\/p>\n

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Star forward Madison Booker happened by and looked up at Del Conte.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got this, CDC!\u201d the Longhorns’ All-American said with a smile.<\/p>\n

Schaefer said he loves his players more than anyone outside their families after Texas turned back upset-minded Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis team has a ton of heart,\u201d he added. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t play with any (against Vanderbilt) in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

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If only he had put it that way in Nashville. There\u2019s a fine line between tough love and risking dissension in family dynamics by speaking too emotionally in front of company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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 \u00a0Commodores lost 76-74 at No. 9 Georgia.<\/p>\n

There are certain words and phrases that you can\u2019t 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\u2019t.<\/p>\n

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I do agree with Schaefer about one thing. One is never too old to learn something.<\/p>\n

Even great coaches can go too far.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas and Notre Dame can do us all a favor and go toe-to-toe in three seasons. Methinks it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11511,31075,261,262,9602,5278,25706,5277,48614,27,29,537,536,5276,28,5279],"class_list":["post-172815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-cedric-golden","tag-chris-del-conte","tag-college-football","tag-college-football-playoff","tag-columnists-opinions","tag-madison-booker","tag-notre-dame-football","tag-sec-basketball","tag-sec-women-s-basketball","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-longhorns-football","tag-texas-longhorns-women-s-basketball","tag-texas-news","tag-vic-schaefer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}