Sarkisian sees a benefit in Texas scheduling tough nonconference opponents after SEC move
In recent years, Texas hasn't shied away from scheduling early-season football tests.
Notre Dame was No. 11 when it hosted Texas in the 2015 season opener and was No. 10 when it opened the 2016 season in Austin one year later. LSU was No. 6 when it stopped by Royal-Memorial Stadium en route to winning the 2019 national championship. Alabama was the top team in college football when it beat Texas by a point last fall and will be highly-ranked again during this September's rematch in Tuscaloosa.
Texas is switching conferences in 2024, and a game at Michigan that September will help the Longhorns prepare for the gantlet that is the SEC. That showdown with the Wolverines opens a four-year stretch in which previously-scheduled games against Michigan and Ohio State will be the highlights of UT's nonconference schedule:
∙ 2024: Colorado State, at Michigan, UTSA
∙ 2025: at Ohio State, San Jose State, UTEP
∙ 2026: Texas State, Ohio State, UTSA
∙ 2027: Michigan, UTEP
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On its official schedule of future games, Texas still lists nonconference contests against Georgia in 2028 and 2029 and a home-and-home series with Florida set for the following two years. Georgia and Florida won't be viewed as nonconference opponents once Texas joins the SEC, though. UTSA (2028, 2030) and UTEP (2029, 2031) are the only other nonconference games that Texas has scheduled between 2028 and 2031.
Texas last played a Football Championship Subdivision-level opponent in 2006. But with SEC play expected to be anything but a cakewalk, would UT be better served by just stacking its early-season schedule with FCS teams and lower-tier FBS programs instead of participating in these marquee nonconference matchups?
If Texas coach Steve Sarkisian has a say, the answer is no.
While speaking to the media ahead of a luncheon in Houston last week, Sarkisian said "there's a lot of value to having big nonconference games." In seven of his nine seasons as a head coach, Sarkisian has played a ranked nonconference opponent in either August or September.
"I think as you go through training camp, everybody has their sights on your conference play and what that looks like," he added. "But I also think you have to prepare yourself for what that's going to look like, and having those big nonconference games early in the season sometimes serve you really well in about week three of training camp when it feels like, man, we're just beating the heck out of each other and the season seems so far down the road. But now when you have that big game kind of early in your season, that can serve as a tool to keep guys motivated. The coaches can use that tool and you can start to game plan a little bit to break up some of the monotony.
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"And you find out about your team. You find out about how guys respond against a really quality opponent, how they respond going into some hostile environments and where your team needs to grow up. You don't have to suffer if you don't play well. If you happen to lose that game, it doesn't have to be catastrophic from a conference standings perspective."
Sarkisian also pointed out that early-season losses will soon no longer be the kiss of death for a team's championship hopes. The College Football Playoff is set to expand to 12 teams in 2024. Had the new-look playoff's formula — the six highest-ranked conference champions and the next six-highest ranked teams — been used for an expanded tournament in 2022, eight of the playoff qualifiers would have had multiple losses. Utah and Kansas State would have reached the playoffs with three losses.
"Now it serves you to go play a quality nonconference opponent knowing if you don't win, you could withstand it," Sarkisian said. "If you do win, that gains a lot of momentum and confidence for your team moving forward."
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And while we're talking about the SEC, Sarkisian isn't. Both during his press conference and a speech to UT fans at the luncheon in Houston, Sarkisian downplayed the Longhorns' impending move. He insisted that his team is only thinking about winning a conference championship in its final year in the Big 12.
"I know everybody wants to talk about the SEC in 2024 and what our schedule looks like in '24 and who's playing who and what pod are you in? That's '24. We're in 2023 and we're in the Big 12," he told the fans in attendance. "Last time I checked, the year we left the Southwest Conference (in 1995), we won a conference championship. So now this is our last year in the Big 12, the goal is to win a conference championship."
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas could still schedule tough tests in future football seasons
