Texas’ 2026 football schedule doesn’t just look hard. It looks punishing.
The Longhorns are staring at a slate that includes Ohio State, Oklahoma, LSU and Texas A&M - four teams that reached last season’s College Football Playoff. That alone puts Texas in rarefied air when it comes to strength of schedule, but the grind goes beyond the marquee names.
One of the biggest breaks for Texas is simple geography. The Longhorns will leave Texas only three times all season, with one of those trips coming before the bye week and the other two stacked back-to-back. That kind of travel setup helps, but it doesn’t erase what’s coming down the stretch.
The final month could be brutal. Texas is scheduled to play three road games in four weeks, and the last four opponents on the calendar bring their own problems.
That closing run starts Nov. 7 at Missouri, then moves to LSU on Nov. 14, returns home for Arkansas on Nov. 21 and finishes at Texas A&M on Nov. 27.
That Nov. 7 trip to Columbia, Mo., is notable for another reason: it will be Texas’ first true road game since Sept. 26, a gap of more than 40 days. From there, the Longhorns head into a stretch that could define how the season looks when the dust settles.
LSU and Texas A&M are especially nasty places to close out a year. Tiger Stadium and Kyle Field both carry the kind of noise and pressure that can tilt a game, and both opponents will have plenty of motivation when Texas arrives.
The A&M game is set for a 6:30 p.m. CT kickoff on Black Friday in College Station.
The LSU game has flexible scheduling and can start anywhere from 2:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Before Texas gets there, the opening SEC run may be just as unforgiving. Weeks 4 through 8 could be the toughest part of the schedule, with trips to Tennessee and a game at Oklahoma in Dallas, followed by home dates against Florida and Ole Miss. The bye week between Tennessee and Oklahoma softens it a bit, and Texas gets only one true road game in that span.
That doesn’t mean the opponents are any easier. Tennessee, Ole Miss and Oklahoma could all land in the preseason AP Poll, and Florida already beat Texas last season in Gainesville, Fla.
There’s also a layer of unfamiliarity in the back half of the schedule. Texas doesn’t see LSU or Missouri often.
LSU has played Texas only twice since 1962, most recently in 2019, and the Tigers now have Lane Kiffin as their coach. Steve Sarkisian has not faced Kiffin as a head coach since their Pac-12 days in the early 2010s, when Sarkisian was at Washington and Kiffin was at USC.
Texas last played Missouri in 2017, when Sarkisian was with the Atlanta Falcons and Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwitz was at NC State.
Texas is hoping to be in the mix for an SEC title and a national title, and this schedule will make the Longhorns earn every bit of that shot. From the opening stretch to the final month, there’s no easy lane here.
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