Texas Longhorns’ 2026 Schedule Looks Brutal

The Texas Longhorns’ 2026 football schedule looks less like a path to the College Football Playoff and more like a weekly survival test.

Ohio State and Ole Miss come to Austin, Texas travels to Tennessee and LSU, Oklahoma waits in Dallas, and the regular season closes at Texas A&M.

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ESPN’s FPI, however, isn’t flinching. Its matchup projections make Texas the favorite in every game listed and point toward an 11-0 record entering the postseason conversation.

That’s an aggressive forecast for a team facing this many traps.

The first real measuring stick arrives Sept. 12 against Ohio State. Texas receives only a 53.7 percent chance to win, making the Buckeyes the closest thing to a coin flip on the schedule.

Survive that, and Steve Sarkisian’s team immediately becomes one of the sport’s biggest national stories.

The model is far more confident about Texas’ first SEC road trip. The Longhorns are given a 75.5 percent chance at Tennessee, despite the noise and chaos that come with a Saturday in Knoxville.

One game later, FPI gives Texas a nearly identical 75.6 percent shot against Oklahoma in the Red River rivalry.

That number feels almost disrespectfully comfortable. The Cotton Bowl rarely cares about rankings, roster advantages or computer models. It’s a rivalry built to destroy clean predictions.

Florida follows with Texas holding an 87.8 percent projection at home.

That matchup carries extra weight after the Gators helped wreck the Longhorns’ playoff hopes last season. Mississippi State is treated as even less threatening at 95.8 percent, despite pushing Texas into overtime a year ago.

November is where the schedule gets mean.

Texas is favored at Missouri at 81.9 percent, but the trip to LSU drops the Longhorns to a 64 percent favorite.

Baton Rouge, Lane Kiffin and a late-season SEC crowd create exactly the kind of environment that can turn one mistake into a season-changing loss.

After a heavily favored home date with Arkansas, Texas heads to College Station for the Lone Star State Showdown.

FPI gives the Longhorns a 65.1 percent chance against Texas A&M, a strong number considering the rivalry, the setting and everything likely to be at stake.

The takeaway isn’t that Texas has an easy road. It’s that the computers believe the Longhorns are good enough to make a brutal road look manageable.

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FPI sees perfection. Sarkisian knows better. Texas won’t need to win every heavyweight fight to reach the playoff, but it can’t afford to stumble against the teams it’s expected to handle. On this schedule, one bad Saturday is survivable.

Two could send the entire season sideways.