When the 2025 college football season kicked off, Ohio State made an immediate statement-taking down the No. 1-ranked Texas Longhorns in a gritty 14-7 win. That early-season heavyweight showdown was circled on calendars for months, and the Buckeyes delivered on their home turf.
But as the dust settles on the regular season and the College Football Playoff field is set, that same game is sparking a different kind of conversation-one that has Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian questioning whether high-stakes nonconference matchups are worth the risk in the current playoff landscape.
Texas finished the season 9-3. And while that’s a strong record in most years, it wasn’t enough to crack the CFP field. Sarkisian knows exactly where the conversation shifts if just one more game had gone their way.
“Do you want us not to schedule Ohio State?” Sarkisian asked, clearly frustrated.
“Because if we’re 10-2 right now, this isn’t a discussion. We’re in the playoff.
But we were willing to go up there and play that game.”
That’s the dilemma staring down elite programs in the expanded SEC era. Texas is already locked in for a return trip to face Ohio State in Austin next September as part of a home-and-home series.
On top of that, the Longhorns are scheduled to face Michigan in 2027. These aren’t cupcake games-they’re marquee matchups that draw national attention and test a team’s playoff mettle.
But with the SEC moving to a nine-game conference slate, Sarkisian is signaling that the balance between competitive ambition and postseason positioning might be tilting in the wrong direction.
“We’re going to nine SEC conference games,” he said. “So to think that we’re going to play a 10th game against Ohio State and Michigan, and who knows who else down the road-I hope we get credit for that. If not, then we really need to look after the ’27 season.”
And you can see where he’s coming from. The Longhorns didn’t just lose to a top-tier Ohio State team-they also dropped a game to a struggling Florida squad that finished 4-8.
That loss stings, no doubt. But in a playoff system built to reward strength of schedule, Texas feels like it paid too steep a price for daring to challenge itself out of the gate.
It’s not like they were blown out. And it’s not like they padded their schedule with soft wins.
Meanwhile, Alabama took a lopsided loss to Florida State in its opener and still clawed its way into the playoff picture. That kind of bounce-back opportunity is what coaches like Sarkisian want to see across the board.
What’s even more frustrating for Texas fans is that the Longhorns, on paper and on the field, are widely seen as a better team than some of the squads that did make the playoff-teams like Tulane and James Madison. But in the committee’s eyes, record often trumps résumé. And that’s where the current system may be falling short.
This isn’t about sour grapes. It’s about recalibrating how we reward programs that don’t shy away from top-tier competition. If college football wants its best teams to face off early and often, there has to be room for a stumble along the way-especially when that stumble comes against a powerhouse like Ohio State.
Speaking of the Buckeyes, they did what they needed to do. Ohio State finished 12-1 and earned the No. 2 seed in the College Football Playoff.
They played a tough schedule, took care of business, and made their case convincingly. That Week 1 win over Texas?
It’s aged pretty well.
For Texas, though, the conversation is far from over. Sarkisian isn’t backing down from big games-but he’s also making it clear that if the system doesn’t evolve, programs may have to think twice before stacking their schedules with giants.
Because in the current format, courage in scheduling isn’t always rewarded. And that’s a problem college football will need to solve.