The Longhorns will once again be one of the preseason favorites to win a national championship because of Arch Manning and a re-fortified supporting class that includes a handful of instant impact transfers on both sides of the ball. Head coach Steve Sarkisian also shook up his coaching staff for the first time in his tenure, replacing defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski with Will Muschamp. 

On my tour around the state building the 2026 summer magazine, I stopped by the Forty Acres to sit down with Sarkisian to discuss the new nine-game SEC schedule, what impressed him most about Manning, why he made the change at DC, and why he believes this roster has a chance to win it all. 

Q: What are your thoughts on the SEC moving to nine conference games a year? 

Sarkisian: Well, it’s obviously challenging. I think one thing about this league is, forget the team you play, forget the helmet, the logo, this league has got really good players and really good coaching, and unless you’re at home, you’re going to play in a tough environment. And that challenge with that is that it is taxing physically, but it is also taxing mentally because you probably don’t ever get a week off. You have to be up and ready every single week, physically and mentally. And so it is challenging on your depth. It is challenging on the morale of your team. Very rarely do you get to play backup players to get significant time, so it hurts player development that way, too. And so there's a lot of challenges to it.

My biggest thing is it's going to be eight more losses for our conference as it pertains to the college football playoff. Since we’ve been in the 12-team playoff, the committee has never put a nine-win team in and we’ve had multiple ones in the Southeastern Conference. Now we’ve added eight losses for teams in this conference and we’re all trying to get into the playoffs so it is going to be difficult. It is going to be challenging. It’s going to make the reward for whoever ends up being the SEC champ that much greater. 

I think about the one year we played a 10-game SEC schedule during COVID and we found a way at Alabama to navigate through it and I think that made that championship even more special because of it. So, whoever can earn that right to call themselves champion at the end (of this season) should probably get an asterisk next to it as the first team to win it with a nine-game schedule. 

Q: How should college football balance an expanded playoff with not losing the meaningfulness of the regular season? 

Sark: Well, I think there’s a lot that goes into it because the regular season still matters because it determines who gets into that playoff. We’re at 12 teams right now and 11 of those are P4 teams since the (G6) gets a guaranteed spot. Eleven spots isn’t a lot when you start adding up the number of schools in the P4, which is like 65 to 70. Everyone thinks we’re the NFL and they’ll say that people don’t value the regular season in the NFL, but when you think about the NFL, there are 32 teams and 14 make the playoffs. That is nearly half. In college football, only 11 of the 70 make it. So, there is still a ton of value in the regular season because you’ve got to handle your business if you want to be one of those 11 teams. Even if we expand to 16 or get into the 20s, that is still not half. There will still be much more value to the regular season in college football than in the NFL, if that’s how we’re comparing it. 

Q: When you look back at last year, what are some things you liked and what are some things you felt were left on the table? 

Sark: I can take a snapshot of our three losses and point to three to five plays in each of those games that might not only change the outcome of those games, but change the outcome significantly for our season. I think about the two fourth-down conversions against Ohio State inside the five. If we convert one of those two, maybe that’s a different outcome in that game and maybe that changes the trajectory of our season. I look at the Georgia game and think about the two fourth-down conversions that they convert at the end of the third quarter when it was still 14-10. That significantly changed the outcome of that game, which I think significantly changed the outcome for our season. I think about three to five plays at Florida that if we play those a little differently on offense, defense, and special teams, that those significantly changed the outcome for that game and our season. 

On the flip side, I look at that team and that team was a resilient group because there were multiple times last season where our backs were against the wall and the noise was really loud outside of our building and that team responded, and that team got better. 

I can unequivocally say we were one of the best teams in the country at the end of the season. We got better as the season went on. Now, we didn't do enough to earn an opportunity to get into the playoff, but I sure would have liked to see us in that playoff because I think we could have beaten any one of those teams that was in that playoff and Miami showed that. I was proud of our team for that and I was proud of their resiliency, their grit, and their toughness. I was disappointed we didn’t play better at some critical moments in some bigger games early in the season, but there was a lot to be learned from that. That team was a younger team on paper and we’re a much older team this year. 

Q: Did the changes in roster construction and the emphasis on the portal come from those struggles or was that always the plan for this year? Do you plan to rely more on the portal or on high school recruiting and development moving forward? 

Sark: I think it is a combination of both. There are still a lot of younger players that we’re going to require more from. I think of Jelani McDonald, Colin Simmons, Trevor Goosby. I don’t think anyone thought he was going to a First-Team All-SEC left tackle. We’re going to require more from Ryan Wingo. But on the flip side of that, man, it is great to bring in a Rasheem Biles and a Cam Coleman and Hollywood Smothers and Raleek Brown. I think the combination of (portal and high school) coming together puts us in a little better position than having all of our eggs in one basket. We’ve tried to balance it about a little better and we’ll see how this formula goes. Hopefully, it goes really well for us and it can serve as a model for the future and how we can go about our business. 

The one thing that we’ve learned is we must stay light on our feet and we’ve got to be willing to pivot and adapt and change with the times. Our job is to put the University of Texas in the best position to be successful and that requires not being stuck in our old ways.

Q: What did you learn about Arch Manning last year?

Sark: He's one of the toughest guys I've ever been around, mentally and physically. That was a hard season and the resiliency he showed, the grit, his ability to respond to that adversity mentally and physically, because he was beat up, but also he wasn’t playing great and was getting beat up publicly. I gained so much respect for him and the way he responded. I think the adversity he went through last year was the best thing for Arch Manning because he found out about himself and he found out what he was capable of. He earned so much respect from the guys in that locker room for his mental and physical toughness with the way he responded. 

I think he was playing as good or better than any quarterback in the country in the second half of the season. The season didn’t go the way we wanted it to go as a team, and probably not for him either, but we’re going to be better for it and he’s going to be better for it. I’m just proud of him and the way he responded last season through some really tough times because I think last season would have broken most young people and he did not break. He got stronger. 

Q: The offense is loaded. Are you worried about keeping everyone happy? 

Sark: I’m not concerned about that. In our system, everybody gets an opportunity to eat. It’s what you do with those opportunities. We tell the players all the time, ‘don’t count your reps, make your reps count.’ It is about quality, not quantity, and I think the players on this team understand that. The better the run games goes, the better the opportunities are in the passing game. The better the passing game goes, the more opportunities there is for the run game. It’s all about maximizing the opportunities when you get them. 

Q: Why did you make a change at defensive coordinator? 

Sark: I’m super appreciative of PK (Pete Kwiatkowski) and the job he did here and I thought we got better year-in and year-out defensively. But I always felt like we could go to another level with the types of players we had and the opportunity to bring in Will Muschamp, who in my opinion is the best in the industry, not just schematically but from a leadership standpoint, the way he presents a defense, the style of play we wanted to play, and the types of players we have in this program, was something I couldn’t pass up. I always feel like I’ve got a responsibility to the University of Texas to put the best team on the field every year for us to go compete for a championship, and part of that is solidifying the best coaching staff I can, as well. 

Q: What are your goals and expectations for this team? 

Sark: Our goals don’t change. We’re in a relentless pursuit to go win a championship and that hasn’t changed around here. I think we’ve got a talented roster that is not lopsided to one side of the ball or the other. I think we’ve got good depth that should allow us to endure injuries if and when they occur. But the thing that gives me the most confidence is the connectivity down in that locker room. These guys are very close, which is unique this time of year. That’s a credit to the leaders on this team that have forged a great bond and that bond, to go along with the talent, is going to help us persevere through some of the tough times that we’ll have to face this fall.