{"id":79965,"date":"2025-12-08T04:03:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T04:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/79965\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T04:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T04:03:11","slug":"longhorns-brace-for-opt-outs-for-citrus-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/79965\/","title":{"rendered":"Longhorns brace for opt outs for Citrus Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve\u00a0Sarkisian made his stance clear every time he stepped in front of a microphone over the last two weeks: He believes his Texas Longhorns<\/a> should have been part of the College Football Playoff<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So did the athletic department brass at Notre Dame, which declined a bowl invitation<\/a> after what the 11th-ranked Fighting Irish perceived to be a\u00a0CFP\u00a0snub.\u00a0Sarkisian said Sunday the No. 13 Longhorns never considered doing the same. They\u2019ll play in the Citrus Bowl<\/a> against No. 18 Michigan on Dec. 31 in Orlando, Fla. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt like if we didn\u2019t get into the\u00a0CFP<\/a>, being right on the cusp, we\u2019d have an opportunity to go to a really good bowl game,\u201d Sarkisian said on a call with reporters Sunday. \u201cWhen you think about the longstanding history of the Citrus Bowl, with a really quality opponent in Michigan coming out of the Big Ten, this was going to be a great opportunity for us, for our players, for our team.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Notre Dame (10-2) was not the only eligible team to decline a bowl bid. Iowa State and Kansas State, both programs that are undergoing coaching changes, opted against playing in the postseason, choosing to pay the Big 12’s $500,000 fines instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sarkisian and Michigan coach Sherrone Moore each pointed toward the possibility of picking up a 10th win when describing their motivations for partaking in a bowl game that has become devalued since the installation of the playoff. The Longhorns are riding consecutive 10-win seasons and have not strung together three such seasons since 2009.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Additional practices awarded to teams participating in bowl games offer both Texas (9-3) and Michigan (9-3) an opportunity to further develop their players, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssentially, this is going to turn into another spring ball for us,\u201d Sarkisian said, \u201cwhere a lot of young players are going to get an opportunity to show how much they\u2019ve grown and developed over the season, and with an opportunity to potentially play in this game where the game doesn\u2019t count toward their eligibility.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Older players, though, must decide whether or not they want to suit up.<\/p>\n

Some schools include language in players’ NIL and revenue-sharing contracts that incentivize participation in these games.\u00a0Sarkisian said Texas is not one of those schools. Moore, when asked, said he didn\u2019t want to discuss specific contract language.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that goes school to school,\u201d Moore said. \u201cWe just really want guys that want to play in the game. You don\u2019t want to have to promote people based on (if) they get rev share to play in the game. You want guys that just want to play football.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moore said he expects the majority of his Wolverines will choose to play. Both Sarkisian and Moore said they will use this week to seek answers regarding who intends to play and who doesn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure it\u2019ll take a little bit of time to get to the final number of who may and may not play,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cBut that\u2019s OK. We\u2019ve got a really young football team. We\u2019ve got a lot of good young players that are champing at the bit for their opportunity to play.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve\u00a0Sarkisian made his stance clear every time he stepped in front of a microphone over the last two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[261,795,3231,27,29,537,536,28],"class_list":["post-79965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-college-football","tag-michigan-wolverines","tag-steve-sarkisian","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-longhorns-football","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79965","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=79965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}