Texas HC Steve Sarkisian has dragged Ohio State football into the Longhorns’ offseason drama with Texas Tech in an expected way
The Ohio State vs. Texas game in September is a highly awaited matchup for the college football regular season. Months ahead of it happening, Steve Sarkisian is joking about playing another team instead.
The Ohio State football 2026 schedule looks like a gauntlet on paper and not many teams will have to face as tough a road to win a national championship.
Expectations are always high in Columbus and they’ll be expected by their fanbase to go into Austin Week 2 and deliver a loss to the Texas Longhorns. In what will be a tough road test in primetime, Buckeye Nation will be highly bothered with anything besides a win.
Ohio State took care of Texas, 14-7, to open last season. By the time the end of the season was here, Ohio State had a first-round exit in the College Football Playoff, and Texas didn’t even make it.
Months ahead of September’s matchup, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian joked (we think) about how he’d be willing to get out of the Ohio State matchup this season.
Steve Sarkisian jokes about getting rid of the Ohio State game
From an outsider’s perspective, it’s been entertaining to watch Texas and Texas Tech take jabs back and forth at each other over the last month about schedules. Texas is getting the word out there that they schedule much tougher than the Red Raiders, while Texas Tech has been trying to get the Longhorns to schedule them, knowing Texas won’t because there’s no real incentive to do so.
“Joey [McGuire] was great about it,” Sarkisian recently said on Up and Adams. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from his response about changing our openers. How about we change our second game of the season and maybe we’ve got something to talk about.”
Texas played a loaded schedule as well and just missed the CFP a year ago with an early-season loss to Ohio State playing a factor. Texas Tech has offered to pay buyout expenses for Texas’ Week 1 opponent, but the Longhorns have no reason to make their life tougher in terms of making the postseason, unless it’s to move off one tough opponent Ohio State, for a lesser but good opponent with Texas Tech.
Sarkisian knows the Ohio State game is happening and that’s why he said it. The statement also reads as the Texas head coach putting Ohio State football on a higher platform than Texas Tech, which he’s right about.
Arch Manning and Cam Coleman against Julian Sayin and Jeremiah Smith will have all eyes on it in September. We’ll hear plenty of talk about the game until it’s actually here.