I'll be honest when I tell you from the jump that I believe the 2026 season is the
one.
Not only will Arch Manning and Colin Simmons likely be entering their final seasons of college football as possibly the best players in the sport on both sides of the ball, but a sophomore class that is almost as large as the current combined junior and senior classes will have emerged into upperclassmen.
So many of the smaller issues that the team faces simply shouldn't exist in 12 months. All of the inexperience in the skill positions will be replaced by a group that could return every single starter and major contributor. Hell, even the defensive tackle position looks potentially loaded a year from now, which is hard to fathom after the scramble jobs in the Portal in the last 18 months.
Sprinkle in a few more dynamic impact contributors from the Portal in December, January and next April, and you have the makings of an obvious national championship favorite going into the 2026 season.
Yet, while I'm strong in my view that the 2026 version of Steve Sarkisian's Texas Longhorns will be a better outfit than the 2025 Longhorns, there's an elephant in the room about this year's team that I'm going to acknowledge right here and now ... as much as I'm salivating over the thought of the 2026 Longhorns, I can't find anyone in college football that I like more than the slightly more flawed version of the 2025 Longhorns. For the first time ever I'm going to say something I've never said about Texas football going into any single season in my life ...
Back-to-back titles are in very, very, very serious play.
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