The SEC will announce Texas' complete SEC slate on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. CT. That schedule won't even include a road non-conference game against two-time defending Big Ten champion Michigan. There’s no warm-up session in the SEC. Texas’ debut schedule might be fun for fans, but it presents a brutal potential path to the College Football Playoff for a team trending toward taking flight as it transitions conferences. This only increases the urgency that should surround Texas' final Big 12 season. Because the Longhorns' 2023 path is WIDE-OPEN.
The Big 12 is undergoing an odd transition year in which the outgoing programs (Oklahoma, Texas) and the incoming programs (BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, UCF) join the league’s other eight teams to create the conference’s first non-round robin schedule since 2011. This means a diluted schedule for every returning Big 12 team as they all get to play two teams in conference play making the jump to the Power Five.
That’s an advantage for Texas more than anyone else. Here’s how the Longhorns' 2023 Big 12 opponents ranked in the 2022 Team Talent Composite in which Texas slotted sixth.
at Baylor – 41st
Kansas – 71st
Oklahoma* – 9th
at Houston – 56th
BYU – 76th
Kansas State – 70th
at TCU – 32nd
at Iowa State – 61st
Texas Tech – 45th
Texas is the most talented team in the Big 12, and it’s not particularly close outside of Oklahoma.
TEXAS LONGHORNS
(Photo: Tim Warner, Getty)
2024 SEC opponents: at Texas A&M, Georgia, at Arkansas, Oklahoma (Dallas), Florida, at Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Mississippi State
The obvious headliners here are the Big 3 for the Longhorns — Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Georgia. That's quite the marquee trio for the program's first season in the SEC, but the trip to Arkansas is salivating as well. The Texas-Texas A&M rivalry will be renewed after more than a decade-long drought while Red River continues in Dallas. Georgia coming to Austin will be one of the league's premiere games and has a chance to shatter college football TV records if both programs come into the game inside the top 10 (as most would expect).