To be fair, it kind of did do that. The debate is whether a 3-loss team that lost to an unranked team should be in the national championship conversation. A few years ago, you didn't get 2, let alone potentially 3, mulligans. Losing to Florida alone would have eliminated Texas from the conversation if this were a 2 or 4 team playoff right now. OSU last year got to lose their biggest regular season game and it didn't affect their ability to win the national championship. They could have lost to Michigan again yesterday and no biggie in the bigger picture. A&M hates losing to Texas, but it doesn't affect their chances to make the national title game - and lets them get one extra week of rest/practice. Expansion just makes each game much lower stakes. The extreme is the NCAA Tournament where you can go like 16-13 or something and still make the tournament at times.
I still think that 8 was the perfect number before conference realignment: SEC, Big 12, Big 10, ACC, and Pac-12 champions followed by the highest-ranked G5 team and two at-large bids (Notre Dame if they qualify and anyone else). It would've preserved geographic conferences and maintained the importance of their championship games. Now Oregon gets to rest and practice while Ohio State and Indiana play in the Big 10 championship where the loser doesn't get a first-round bye. I imagine that Oregon fans like this since they have no real ties to the Big 10 anyway.
Ya I'm working under the assumption that a 2-loss Texas team without a big non-conference game is making the CFP which would've likely been the case this season and almost identical to how Ohio State and Tennessee made it last season. While the specific circumstances of this season don't define every season, I think reasonable inferences can be made especially knowing your conference opponents years in advanced. I also think A&M's schedule this year was an absolute outlier. I'm really interested in seeing how the committee handles Miami.
One thing I would say about OOC games is they are scheduled waaaay in advance. This OSU series was agreed to in 2014. At that point, we were still in the BCS era and Texas hadn't even considered joining the SEC.
If we are looking at a transition from good non conf games at the start of the season to the end then it would be nice if there were more home games. Going to 16 and getting rid of the byes would help but extending home games to the 2nd round would be ideal. It’s nice to see Ohio st at DKR and not in Arlington.
I’m honestly not that upset Texas didn’t get in. You can make a fair case either way. Bottom line: we shouldn’t have lost to Florida, and we shouldn’t have needed miracles to beat two bad SEC teams that were something like 0–28 in conference play combined. This team can beat anyone, but they can also lose to almost anyone. The defense kept us alive most weeks, but the offense was too inconsistent. Arch did improve, though, and I’m looking forward to next season — he should be positioned for a strong year. I haven’t checked next year’s home schedule yet, but it has to be better than this year outside of Vandy and A&M (both games I went to). The Georgia score looks worse than the game actually was, in my opinion. They beat us soundly and Kirby out-coached Sark, but the margin ballooned on two quick possessions, especially the onside kick we were somehow unprepared for — even after the broadcast mentioned earlier that Sark expected Kirby to try something sneaky. Manning still perplexes me, but the last few weeks make me think he’ll be fine. He missed a lot of throws for most of the season, mixing great passes with some real head-scratchers. His A&M game was legitimately impressive. The outside hype set unrealistic expectations, but next season he should be ready to compete for the big accolades.
Texas State Ohio State UTSA (Dates not announced for SEC games yet) Arky Ole Miss Miss State (Road) Aggy Mizzou LSU Tennessee
Hmm. So not great either. Obviously OSU is great. But Ole Miss I’m not sure what they’ll look like next year. Arkansas I guess there’s still the old rivalry. Definitely better than this year, though. My poor dad is too good to his kids. Had 4 tix since 2002 and he only sells if none of us want them or have friends that want them for face value. He could have made thousands for A&M alone!
How do we have a home game against Arkansas when we just played them in Austin? I thought the protected SEC rivalries were supposed to flip-flop each season.
5* LB Tyler Atkinson officially signs Spoiler: espn says: Sarkisian and the Longhorns landed one of the nation's most productive high school defenders when Atkinson, ESPN's top-ranked outside linebacker in 2026, announced his commitment to Texas over Georgia, Clemson and Oregon on July 15. Atkinson, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound prospect from Loganville, Georgia, was credited with a staggering 483 total tackles with 31.5 sacks across his first three seasons at Grayson (Georgia) High School, where he led the program to a 6A state title in 2024. Atkinson's commitment marked the second time Texas beat Georgia for a prominent local talent in the last 12 months after Sarkisian and Co. pulled 2025 five-star defensive tackle Justus Terry -- another longtime in-state target for the Bulldogs -- to Austin last December. Scout's take: Atkinson lacks ideal height and that kept him off the initial list of five-stars. However, he has assembled a body of work that proved he was deserving of a fifth star. He has adequate height and reach, and his physical upside is likely limited, but he has consistently shown what he can do with the physical tools he has. He has been a highly productive player posting over 150 tackles each of the last two seasons and over 50 TFLs. He has a powerful lower body and it shows in his play. He possesses an explosive burst with elite closing speed, and when he arrives at the ball, he can deliver a punishing pop as a tackler. With very good body control and explosiveness he can also be a disruptive pass rusher and moves well in space to be effective in zone coverage. We have seen Atkinson display a competitive nature and versatile skill set during in-person evaluation with his ability to work with the defensive line unit as well as with the linebackers in the course of one camp. Atkinson might not possess some of the same upside as others ranked as five-stars, but he looks poised to arrive at Texas and immediately jump into the mix. His ability to contribute quickly could nicely mirror another former five-star addition and the player he could likely end up replacing -- 2023 five-star Anthony Hill Jr. who made an impact as a true freshman. While Texas has a talented linebacker corps and will have options to replace Hill, Atkinson seems to be an ideal remedy at middle linebacker for the Longhorns when that spot calls for the next man up.
Yup and these were all scheduled before the SEC changed to a 9 game schedule. I understand the optics of cancelling these games and one thing I didn't account for was the revenue they bring in, but the CFP's final rankings sure doesn't seem like it's worth the risk. Especially knowing we have home/away series with Georgia, Bama, LSU, and Tennessee the next 4 seasons on top of our annual opponents.
The counterargument is Vandy, who would be in right now if they had a big OOC win. They had a pretty normal SEC schedule. Got Texas and Alabama on the road and lost to them. Good wins against Tennessee and Mizzou. Had bad luck with SoCar, Auburn and LSU all being bad. But overall, they went 10-2 with a reasonable SEC schedule, were the highest scoring team in the SEC by a large margin, have a Heisman candidate, and had only 2 losses to top-tier teams on the road and are on the outside looking in. Give them a big non-conference win and they jump Texas, BYU, Miami, and potentially Notre Dame. A loss will of course hurt, but a win helps. And I don't think top-tier programs schedule out of fear.
Well, going forward you get your 9 conference games, 1+ games against P4 opponent, 1-2 cupcakes Just looked at OOC games for a some schools: Bama has FSU, Ohio State, Ohio St and Okie St, Notre Dame and Okie State the next 4 years Georgia has Georgia Tech every year, but also has Louisville, Louisville and FSU, FSU, Clemson LSU has Clemson, Houston, SMU, SMU
Of course, it'll be interesting to see what schools drop/pickup what games going forward. SEC teams are required to play one OOC game against a P4 school
Sark on OOC scheduling… “At the end of the day, they looked at the record, and said, ‘What is your record?’ And so my point is that that’s fine, but just tell us that that’s what it is,” Sarkisian said about yesterday’s rankings, placing Texas three spots away from the tournament. “I just don’t like contradicting yourself. You tell me it’s about strength of schedule, and you tell me about head-to-head, but yet, then you make a decision predicated on what our record is. We’re going to honor Ohio State and Michigan. For the next two years, we know what our non-conference schedule is going to look like,” Sarkisian said. “I think anything beyond that is up for discussion. (Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte) and I have 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. So much of the non-conference scheduling was when we were in the Big 12. Well, there’s a little bit of a different shift now that we’re in the Southeastern Conference, and another shift now that we’re going to nine conference games. And so we’ve got to be mindful of one, putting our players in the best position to have success and to have growth. Two, we have to be mindful of how the committee is going to evaluate to put the best teams into the college football playoff,” Sarkisian said. “Now, the goal is to go win the SEC every year, and when you do that, you have to worry about what the records look like, and you probably have a good record if you’re in that game and winning it. But I also need to look at what the committee has shown me over the last two years, since we’ve expanded to 12 tams. They care about your record, and so we’ve got to be mindful of that as we go, and we’ll see what that looks like. I love the big brand games too. Nobody likes it more than me. I love coaching in those games. I love getting our teams ready for those games, like, I’m all for it. I love playing those games. I don’t like the repercussions of playing those games if I don’t get rewarded for playing them,” Sarkisian said. “And I think CDC is in line with that too, so we’re very aligned. But ultimately, we have a responsibility at the University of Texas to make sure that we’re putting our teams in the best position to go win championships, because that’s why we got hired, to go compete for championships. And so again, it’s not about shying away from playing anybody. I also know we play in the toughest conference in the country. We already have the number one strength of schedule in the country, and I think if you took Ohio State off our schedule, we still might have the toughest strength to schedule in the CFP.”
“I just don’t like contradicting yourself" -- Sark Maybe he should go back and listen to what he said on the field after the ATM game? Dude, I get it, I just don't like it. I like good football games every week. Fix the playoff system, not the schedules.
Except that's not what it is. No one contradicted themselves, and no one ever said it's only about head to head or strength of schedule or whatever. He's creating a strawman so he can argue against it. If they were just looking at record, why is BYU below 3 loss teams? Why are a bunch of 2 loss teams below Texas? Every team that will make it has an argument over Texas. Texas has an argument over some of them. SOMEONE will get left out. It's not like it's some simple equation to pick the 12 best teams - no one ever is going to agree on who those teams are. College football has tried polls, computers, committees, combos of them all, and no one will ever agree. When it was 2 teams, the fight was over #3. When it was 4, the fight was over #5. Now it's over #13. In March Madness, people ridiculously argue over who the 69th best team is. Coaches have to whine when they aren't included, but it doesn't make it any more logical. Don't lose 3 games and don't look awful in several others. You can only get so many mulligans when there are only 12 playoff teams. It would be funny if Texas stops playing good OOC teams in a few yearsa and then is in Vandy's situation and then he can whine about being left out for not having a good enough schedule.
