Guys, it's game week. The final game week of 2025 for this not-quite-beloved edition of the Texas Longhorns football team.
It's a contest against a Michigan team that has been turned upside down to such an extent since the match-up was announced that up is still kind of down and vice versa. Meanwhile, the Longhorns have had so many players bail before the game that even culture leaders such as Tre Wisner, have decided that they'd rather bring in the New Year's Eve doing something other than wearing burnt orange in Orlando.
Some of you are a bit disenfranchised. Some of you are at your wits' end. Some just don't care.
Me?
I'm all kinds of fascinated by what we're going to see on Wednesday. It feels like a free hit from my perspective. Winning would be pretty cool, but my supreme interest level has less to do with the outcome of the game and more to do with the novelty of it all. For the first time in my lifetime, I'm going to watch a Longhorns contest with an eye fully on what the proceedings over 60 minutes might mean for what happens in nine months.
Considering I've put the 2025 season behind me, but find myself quite anxiously wondering what 2026 might be all about, this game didn't have me at hello, but it has me now.
Here's a look at 14 questions I have about the 2026 Longhorns that we might get mini-answers to that otherwise would never exist. It's an opportunity that Steve Sarkisian hopes to never have again in the same capacity, but there's a part of me that is wondering why this match-up can't be a home-and-home in the spring? Forget about the concepts of spring games that have existed for decades. Why not have this kind of match-up later in the year when the stakes can be just as small, but the gains could prove to be immense.
From offense to defense and everything in between, here are things floating around in my head a few days out from the season-finale.
