A year ago at this time, Texas was one of the most-hyped teams in recent memory.
The Longhorns had the preseason No. 1 ranking. Paul Finebaum said he expected Arch Manning to be a generational player. Steve Starkisian and Pete Kwiatkowski were heralded as two of the best play callers in the sport.
A disappointing 9-3 regular season followed. Manning under-performed, as virtually anyone would given where the bar was set, especially early in the season. Sarkisian’s offense slumped to 4.96 yards per play, which ranked 41st nationally. Kwiatkowski was dismissed after the season.
And yet, after all that disappointment, we’re right back where we were a year ago.
Manning is near the top of the Heisman Trophy odds board and Texas is favored (or second-favorite) to win the SEC.
This pattern, of course, is not new for Texas. In the CFP era, the Longhorns have gone under their win total in 8 of 11 seasons (excluding 2020).
In 2023 and 2024, Sarkisian looked like he was reversing course at a program that has habitually underperformed since the peak of the Mack Brown era. In 2025, they backslid.
What will 2026 have in store? The answer may be legacy-defining for both Sarkisian and Manning.
Texas win total analysis
This piece is part of a series we’re running this offseason at Saturday Down South where we’ll look at regular-season win totals for all 16 SEC teams. We’ve previously analyzed Alabama, Georgia and LSU, Auburn, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt and Florida. Texas is up next.
Texas regular season win total
Here’s the up-to-date win total from BetMGM:
- Over 9.5 wins (+100)
- Under 9.5 wins (-125)
Based on the current market, Texas is slightly more likely to win 9 or fewer games than to get to 10+ in 2026. The -125 price translates to an implied probability of 55.56%.
Texas 2026 schedule
Here’s the schedule that Texas will be facing this fall:
- Sept. 5: vs. Texas State
- Sept. 12: vs. Ohio State
- Sept. 19: vs. UTSA
- Sept. 26: at Tennessee
- Oct. 3: OFF
- Oct. 10: vs. Oklahoma (Dallas)
- Oct. 17: vs. Florida
- Oct. 24: vs. Ole Miss
- Oct. 31: vs. Mississippi State
- Nov. 7: at Missouri
- Nov. 14: at LSU
- Nov. 21: vs. Arkansas
- Nov. 27: at Texas A&M
The Longhorns have a marquee matchup against Ohio State on Sept. 12. Per the latest college football odds at most sports betting apps, Texas-Ohio State is a pick ‘em.
Texas then starts SEC play with back-to-back games away from home against CFP hopefuls in Tennessee and Oklahoma. Then begins a stretch of 3 straight home games against Florida, Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
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November is headlined by a pair of road tests against LSU and Texas A&M to close out the regular season.
My prediction — Texas goes under this win total. Here are 3 reasons why:
The schedule is unfavorable
I think Texas is very unfortunate with its home/road game splits this season. I count 6 games against teams with legitimate College Football Playoff aspirations (albeit to varying levels) this year — Ohio State, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, LSU and Texas A&M.
Three of those games are on the road, 4 are away from home and a 5th is against an Ohio State team that’s certainly capable of winning a coin-flip game in Austin.
That’s 6 games on Texas’s schedule that I would classify as possible losses. UT would have to go 4-2 in those games and also run the table in its other 6 contests in order to get to 10+ wins. I don’t see that as particularly likely.
Arch Manning’s range of outcomes is wide
While Arch Manning clearly fell short of preseason expectations in 2025, I think he ultimately ended the season with some promise and it’s reasonable to have him near the top of the Heisman Trophy odds board this offseason.
With that being said, it’s not necessarily a guarantee that Manning will live up to the hype in 2026. He finished 42nd in passer efficiency rating last season as Texas missed out on the College Football Playoff.
If he’s in that range again, Texas’s offense will likely not be good enough to win 10 games against this tough slate. The Longhorns need elite quarterback play from Manning, which is an outcome that’s plausibly on the table, but far from a sure thing. A modest improvement in efficiency is probably the most likely outcome.
The addition of Cam Coleman will help, but it’s somewhat mitigated by the losses of Parker Livingstone (Oklahoma) and DeAndre Moore Jr. (Colorado). Texas also lost starting tight end Jack Endries to the NFL.
Texas lost a lot on defense
The Texas defense will be a fascinating watch this season for a number of reasons. The Longhorns squandered an extremely talented unit last season, losing Anthony Hill Jr., Michael Taaffe, Malik Muhammad and Trey Moore to the NFL Draft.
Sarkisian also made the curious choice to bring in Will Muschamp as the program’s defensive coordinator. Muschamp was once a highly-respected defensive play-caller, including during a previous stint in Austin. But Muschamp hasn’t been purely a defensive coordinator since 2015 when he was at Auburn in that role. More recently, he was the co-defensive coordinator at Georgia from 2022-23 but took a reduced role with the program in 2024-25.
The loss of defensive star power paired with the addition of a questionable play-caller has me concerned this defense might be worse than it was a season ago, not better.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
