That giant gust of wind you feel blowing from the Lone Star State isn’t a tornado, though we are definitely in season for that.
No, it’s just a bunch of hot air from a couple of college football coaches calling each other out while knowing they won’t face any repercussions on the field.
For those not in the know, Texas Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian made a not-so-subtle jab at Texas Tech’s strength of schedule, while Red Raiders head coach Joey Maguire clapped back, saying they would love to play the Longhorns and are even willing to cancel their out-of-conference game against Abilene Christian to accommodate.
Let’s be clear before we go any further: this will never happen.
Texas and Texas Tech would never cancel games with non-conference opponents to play each other, nor would their conferences and the NCAA let them.
But if they could, I’m here to tell you the Longhorns should reject the Red Raiders’ and Maguire’s terms outright.
Texas has nothing to gain from adding Tech to their schedule and everything to lose.
WHICH TEAMS HAVE THE TOUGHEST STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE HEADING INTO COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON?
In an era where teams are canceling tough non-conference games left and right to create an easier path to the College Football Playoff, why on God’s green Earth would the Longhorns make an already brutal schedule even harder?
Just take a look at last season, where a 9-3 Texas team was playing some of the best football in the country by year’s end, narrowly missing the Playoff despite going 3-1 against top-10 teams from the month of October onward.
It could be argued beyond any shadow of a doubt that if the Longhorns had scheduled some in-state FCS scrub instead of Ohio State in Week 1 of last year and finished 10-2, they would have waltzed into the CFP as a top-10 team.
WHICH TEAMS HAVE THE MOST VALUABLE COLLEGE FOOTBALL ROSTERS HEADING INTO 2026 SEASON?
This year, Sarkisian and his squad play Ohio State once again, in addition to two teams from the state of Texas that were bowl eligible last season in UTSA and Texas State.
Not exactly a cakewalk of a non-conference slate, but it only gets tougher once they enter league play.
The Longhorns play Tennessee, LSU and rival Texas A&M on the road in addition to home games against Florida and Ole Miss, not to mention their annual neutral-site showdown against Oklahoma.
FIVE SEC TRAP GAMES IN 2026 THAT COULD UPEND THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF RACE, FROM LSU TO GEORGIA
Three of those teams were Playoff teams in 2025, and LSU and Tennessee should both be much improved this coming season.
Throw in the fact that Florida has one of the best rosters year in and year out (regardless of record) and they took down Texas last season, and the Longhorns undoubtedly face a gauntlet of a schedule in 2026.
Adding Texas Tech to the fray wouldn’t do anything to strengthen their resume in the eyes of the CFP selection committee, so a loss would hurt way more than a win would help in this hypothetical scenario.
I understand why Maguire would want to talk tough in this scenario.
For one, he likely knows this fantasy matchup would never occur, and secondarily, since Tech’s schedule and resume are considerably less daunting than Texas’, it would only help bolster their strength of schedule should they add another Power Four playoff contender.
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The SEC gets dogged for playing “cupcakes,” but Texas’ schedule proves that’s often overblown.
This hypothetical showdown will obviously never occur, nor should it.
Texas and Texas Tech will have every opportunity to play each other in the CFP, I doubt either of them would want to jeopardize that by picking up an extra regular season loss.
That’s just where we are in college football these days.
