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This month has marked a break from what many Longhorn observers had come to view as Texas football’s own version of an Advent calendar. For the past two seasons, the first door opened was Texas playing in a conference championship game. It feels like yesterday that Longhorn fans were booing Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark before, during, and after Texas’ conference title win over Oklahoma State. Fans hadn’t forgotten the salty shots Yormark took at the program on its way out of the league. Watching him begrudgingly hand over the Big 12 Championship Trophy to the Longhorns felt like an early Christmas present, one wrapped in burnt orange and delivered with just the right amount of spite, the kind of gift a drunk uncle hands you while muttering under his breath before asking where the bourbon went.
Before last season, most college football observers questioned whether Texas was truly ready for the SEC. Yes, the Longhorns had just won a Big 12 championship, a league some dismissed as the JV of college football. But the move to the SEC represented something different, a step from stocking stuffers to the main gift under the tree. The answer came quickly. Texas wasn’t just ready for the jump; it looked comfortable on college football’s varsity stage. The Longhorns exceeded most expectations and reached the SEC Championship Game in their first season in the league. Once again, that first week of December arrived with Longhorn fans peeking ahead, wondering if the next door would open to falling confetti. It didn’t. But missing that moment didn’t change the bigger picture. The ultimate prize was never the conference trophy; it was, and still is, a national championship.
We started to grow accustomed to Texas preparing for, and competing in, playoff games in December. There was the thrilling playoff home win against Clemson two years ago, the night Quinn Ewers and Cade Klubnik turned DKR into a postseason stage. The common folk boarded a Delta flight to Atlanta for the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Day, while some of you quietly slipped onto a private jet without extending me an invite to join you in luxury. Either way, the result was the same: celebration. That victory pushed Texas into the College Football Playoff semifinals, a place the Longhorns reached in back-to-back seasons. By then, postseason football in December felt routine, just another door on the Texas Football Advent calendar that Longhorn fans expected to open every year.
The 2026 calendar, however, is a lot less festive. Texas entered the season as the preseason No. 1 team in both the AP and Coaches Polls. This wasn’t a program hoping to contend; it was one expected to compete for, and legitimately win, a national championship after reaching the playoff semifinals in two consecutive seasons. Around the sport, this was widely viewed as Texas’ breakthrough year. The standard wasn’t implied. It was set in bold print. This was supposed to be a playoff team.
Instead, Texas is getting ready for the Cheez-It Bowl.
No disrespect to a game named after a snack every parent has packed for a road trip or later vacuumed out of the backseat. Cheez-Its are fine. The jalapeño ones are my favorite. But when you’ve grown accustomed to dining at the playoff table, being handed a box of flavored crackers feels less like a reward and more like a reminder of how far expectations have fallen. It doesn’t taste anything like the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, and it certainly doesn’t feel like December is being spent the way it was supposed to be.
Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian has no margin for error between now and the 2026 season.
“Yeah, this is a drastically different December than we have had from two years ago and most notably from what we had last year,” Sarkisian said. “You think about what we were doing last year at this time, we were playing in a conference championship game, signing date going on right in the middle of it. Then the portal opens, and you are trying to recruit, all the while get ready for your first round playoff game and then the next game and then the next playoff game.
“The idea that we do have more time on our hands to really, like you say, audit our own organization from top to bottom, from schemes to play calls to personnel to roster to what we have coming in that we just signed, to where we maybe can enhance that throughout the portal to the way we do our offseason program. There is a lot of things that I have been evaluating last week, when we had that time off, and will continue to do so throughout January.
“I am big into believing in it is easy to whine, complain, moan, poor us, poor me. I just don’t live in that world. I live in, okay, this is what it is. Let’s move forward.
“If I am going to move forward, then we’ve got to use our time wisely and we have to attack the things that are attainable right in front of us and then start looking at some things down the road long-term. This time gives us an opportunity to do that.”
By no means am I suggesting Sarkisian is on the hot seat or faces a do-or-die situation in 2026. This season was disappointing for Longhorn fans, but there are several reasonable explanations for why Texas is not in the playoffs.
The CFP committee seemingly made worse decisions than Sherrone Moore at Michigan’s job fair.
The offensive line struggled this season.
Texas did not have a run game.
It took longer than expected for Arch Manning to develop.
The hiring of running backs coach Chad Scott was a huge mistake.
The unnecessary nonconference scheduling of Ohio State.
Losing to Florida.
Barely escaping losses against Kentucky and Mississippi State.
Getting blown out by Georgia.
Even if you disagree with why Texas is not in the playoffs, it is not hard to understand why Texas is getting prepared for the Cheez-It Bowl instead of the playoffs this week. There were several things that Texas controlled and could have avoided, but it did not.
The majority of Longhorn observers questioned how an inexperienced offensive line would perform this season, but Texas did not add any players in the transfer portal.
The majority of Longhorn observers questioned if the running back room would be okay with multiple players recovering from major injuries, but Sarkisian decided what he had was good enough.
There was an assumption that Manning would be an instant upgrade over Ewers, but not enough people anticipated that there would be growing pains this season.
The nonconference schedule seemed like an obvious hindrance to Texas’ postseason hopes for years.
Texas cannot lose to Florida.
It definitely cannot get blown out by Georgia.
“What I’ve learned out of this whole thing is, we got to control what we can control, and we got to win more games,” Sarkisian said. “We got to win the games that are right in front of us. Clearly, we didn’t do enough of that this year.”
That cannot happen again.
The standard is the standard. The Texas standard is competing for a conference championship and a national championship. That standard was reestablished during the 2023 and 2024 seasons, and it would be disingenuous to suggest those standards no longer apply just because Texas failed to meet its goal.
Some Longhorn observers have reverted to the, “Hey, this program has come a long way since Charlie Strong and Tom Herman.” While that may be true, we are long past the days of just being grateful for not underachieving in most seasons.
The only thing that matters is Sarkisian and his staff doing everything within their power to get Texas back into the playoffs. Everything from December 7 until the season opener against Texas State on September 5 must be about getting Texas back into the playoffs.
That means attacking the transfer portal like the days when stores opened the day after Christmas.
That means better player development at all positions.
That means adding staff members and eliminating those who are dead weight.
That means examining play-calling on both sides of the ball.
That means leaving no stone unturned.
So far, Sarkisian is taking better control heading into the offseason than last year.
Sarkisian was hesitant to attack the transfer portal because he believed they were good to go at multiple positions.
Nowadays?
“I think the offensive line is something that we’re going to address in the portal. An interior defensive lineman is something we’ll address in the portal. Potentially a linebacker, potentially something in the secondary, potentially a running back. I mean, there are needs there that we’re going to address.
“But again, do they fit us? Do they fit us physically in the style in which we want to play? Do they fit us culturally, from a character standpoint? And that’s the homework that we need to do to get that done.
“And so, again, the transfer portal is great. Like I said, it fills needs for us. But at the end of the day, when you really look at us year in and year out, the bulk of what we do is in high school recruiting.
“Going into this year, we were one of the younger football teams in the country. We knew that going into the season. We knew there were going to be growing pains. And going into next year, I think we’re going to see the benefits of that.
“We had a lot of young players, first- and second-year players, play for us this year that are going to be a lot better players next year. So we’re going to grow up again, and we’ll become a veteran football team again. You’re just going to have years like this when maybe you’re a little bit younger, and that’s okay.”
In addition, Sarkisian parted ways with Scott and hired former Florida running backs coach Jabbar Juluke. That should be an instant upgrade for a running backs room that struggled without Tashard Choice. Sarkisian prides himself on producing 1,000-yard running backs. This might be the move toward getting Texas back to the standard in that room.
And there is no telling if Sarkisian may make more staff changes after this season.
Regardless of who stays or leaves, they must be dedicated to getting this program back to where it should be.
The Cheez-It Bowl is a nice snack.
It just is not a meal associated with conference championship games or playoff games.
Sarkisian has no margin for error between now and the 2026 season.
