To fully understand the stakes for Texas's 2026 season, let's fast forward to January 2027. You're a stakeholder in the Longhorns football program -- AD Chris Del Conte, head coach Steve Sarkisian, a major booster -- and it's your first day back at the office after the conclusion of the 2026 season. Cup of coffee in hand, you collapse into your desk chair and let out one of the biggest sighs known to man.
If Texas wins the national title, you can exhale from January all the way to the following September. Sure, Arch Manning, Cam Coleman, Trevor Goosby, Colin Simmons and others have already declared for the NFL Draft, but that's a lot of money off the books for the 2027 roster. Should you re-invest in the portal and try to go back-to-back, or put it all into recruiting to try to build another loaded roster in a year or two? The choice is yours. After a 6-year build, you've ended Texas' two-decade title drought, validated yourself and your process, and can move forward free in the knowledge that your process works and without the weight of a 1-ton steer on your back. Sark can begin envisioning himself entering his Pete Carroll and Nick Saban era.
But if Texas falls short of a national title? Brother, the mood around Texas football moving forward will be intense.
Look at it this way: When's the next time you're going to get a Manning to quarterback your roster? Not only that, you've surrounded yourself with the best 1-2 punch at wide receiver (Coleman, Ryan Wingo), you've protected him with arguably the top left tackle in college football (Goosby), and on the other side you have arguably the best defensive player (Simmons) in college football. And you would have squandered it.
Obviously, we can't begin to know the details of how Texas would have fallen short in a season that's still months away. But for the sake of contextualizing the unique pressure of this season, let's game it out. There are likely two ways it would go: either Texas falls short in a semifinal or championship game, as they did in CFP losses to Washington and Ohio State in 2023-24, or they miss the mark completely, as they did last season, falling out of the CFP completely after starting the season at No. 1. If it's a 2023-24-style heartbreaker, Sark and the rest of the Longhorns will have to push that emotional damage aside to begin climbing the mountain anew. A large reason the 2025 team fell so far short of its goals was that Sark delayed much of the offseason team-building work until the summer, an understandable human response after two long, intense seasons chasing a national championship.
“To me, that played a part of us maybe not playing as good a football early in the season,” Sarkisian admitted this spring.
In January 2027, Sark and company would have to begin rolling that boulder back up the hill, this time with the knowledge he's already coached the most talented team he'll likely ever have.
But if Texas has another 2025-style bellyflop? Then the talk around him will begin. Media, fans and donors will present the question, Has this guy already taken us as far as he can? Is this is as good as it's ever going to get? No one's suggesting Sark would be on any sort of a hot seat... but c'mon, this is as big as big-time college football gets. On Sept. 27, 2025, Penn State was ranked No. 3 in the country and had the ball in double overtime with a chance to defeat No. 6 Oregon. James Franklin was fired two weeks later. Again, no one's calling for anyone's head, but Sarkisian would be on the Franklin path if he doesn't break through this fall.
Sarkisian's own decision-making is on the clock this fall. The most urgent question that will be asked of Sarkisian this fall will cut immediately to the core of his reputation as a coach: his ability to mold quarterbacks and coordinate offenses. Due to reasons partly out his control, Sark had former No. 1 recruit Quinn Ewers for three seasons, and he was barely drafted. If Texas falls short this fall, it will most likely be because Manning failed to develop the way he should have.
And despite the fact that his defense has ranked (often significantly) ahead of his offense for the past four seasons running, Sark decided the chess move his team required was to fire his defensive coordinator so he could spend more time with his offense.
“I would say probably for the first time I feel like we have the top-level talent across the board position by position on both sides of the ball. But, yet, we also have the depth behind it across the board,” he said this spring. “I felt like we’ve had years where we’ve been elite at a couple positions and maybe we hadn’t had anything behind it, and it would have been really scary to think what would have happened if certain guys went down.”
Then you have the off-field stuff. Sarkisian has been, let's say, unafraid to call it like it is, taking shots at Ole Miss's academics and suggesting his backups could go undefeated in the Big 12. His mouth has been writing checks his players will now be expected to cash.
“We’re not shy to say we’re a good football team,” Sarkisian said at the Touchdown Club of Houston last week.
If Texas wins the title, the ring will be covered in blood. SP+ rates Texas's schedule the most difficult in the country. The Longhorns play four Playoff teams a year ago, starting with Ohio State. After losing to the Buckeyes in each of the past two seasons, their trip to Austin is must-win for Texas. Semifinalist Ole Miss also comes to Austin, and Texas must also visit arguably the three toughest atmospheres in the SEC: at Neyland Stadium on Sept. 26, at Death Valley on Nov. 14, and at Kyle Field on Black Friday. Considering the circumstances, it can be argued that the Red River game against Oklahoma, a Playoff team a year ago, is UT's fifth- or sixth-toughest game of the season. Even September home dates against Texas State and UTSA, sandwiching the Ohio State games, are the most difficult buy games Texas can possibly play.
2026 is the type of season Sark spent his entire career working toward, and one that will shape the rest his working life for as long as he's in coaching -- for better or worse. Whether the upcoming campaign is a 16-0 triumph or an 8-5 calamity, the work will begin next January with one deep, long sigh.