No Notre Dame tantrums from Michigan and Texas ahead of Citrus Bowl: 'We're going to cherish it'

The Michigan Wolverines and Texas Longhorns will meet on New Year’s Eve in the Citrus Bowl, marking the second time in as many seasons the two storied programs will meet on the field.

Neither is pleased with the circumstances that led to them missing out on the College Football Playoff, but both Sherrone Moore and Steve Sarkisian’s programs are going to compete anyway. Unlike Notre Dame, which decided to take its ball and go home despite losing its two showcase games against CFP teams this season.

The Fighting Irish were too good for a Pop-Tarts Bowl bid against BYU, another team that had a playoff case, apparently.

Moore was asked about the idea of opting out and the current state of the bowl system.

“There are two ways to think of it,” Moore said during a call on Monday. “For our student-athletes and for our coaches and for us to play in those big-time games, that’s why you come to Michigan. I’m sure that’s why they went to Texas, to play in those games.

“At the end of the day, those wins and losses can affect you. I think those are conversations as we get through this season and we get into the College Football Playoff conversations, those wins and losses matter. As a university, you have a certain way of doing things. From conference to conference, you have a certain way of doing things. Those are decisions we’ll have to make as we go through.

“But we’re excited about the challenge of playing Texas. And we know we’ve got to play them later on down the road.”

Michigan and Texas played Week 2 last season, a 31-12 Longhorn victory in Ann Arbor, and are set to play in Austin in 2027. Sarkisian said recently that if Texas were to miss the CFP, it would have to reconsider its non-conference scheduling and games with Ohio State and Michigan. Moore just wants the chance to compete.

“It’s another opportunity to go play football, especially against a great opponent on a great stage,” Moore said. “It’s another opportunity and why you’ve come to places like this. So, for us, it felt like it was important not only for the development of our coaches and our players, but just the development of the program. And what you get to do, and it’s a reward to be able to go do things like that.”

“It’s about 20 degrees here, too. So, going to Orlando will be nice for the week, not only for the coaches, the coaches’ families and the players. We’re really excited about the opportunity that we have to go play in such a high-profile bowl game. And like you said, I can’t speak on everybody else’s decision, but it’s another opportunity for us to go play football and practice, and we’re really excited about it.”

Sarkisian chimes in after Michigan bowl showdown announcement

Texas needed a lot of help during championship weekend to even sniff potential CFP consideration, and when the dust settled, the group was on the outside looking in. Even with Sarkisian’s recent brash statements about the playoff case and future scheduling, opting out of a bowl like Notre Dame did was never a consideration.

“We felt like if we didn’t get into the CFP being right on the cusp, we would have an opportunity to go to really good bowl game,” Sarkisian told the media. “You think about the long-standing history of the Citrus Bowl with a quality opponent being in Michigan coming out of the Big Ten, that this was going to be a great opportunity for us, for our players, for our team. When you really look at our guys last year, we didn’t get the bowl experience at all. When you go to the playoffs coming right out of the SEC Championship game, we didn’t get the bowl experience.

“I think that part of playing college football is getting some of that bowl experience. If we could have earned a bye, we could have had a little different experience, but we didn’t. So, I want our guys to enjoy this. I feel like it is the right thing for us to do for a lot of reasons. I don’t know about the ripple effect for everybody. I think we all have goals and aspirations of winning conference championships and being national champions. At least, we do, but I also think that there is an experience factor in all of this. There is growth in all this. There is development in all this. There is camaraderie. There is so much that goes into this that sometimes a bowl game is about celebrating a season and finishing a season the right way.

“I can’t speak for everybody else. That may change some as we potentially evolve into more teams. I don’t know. I think we all can agree, we have a flawed system right now that needs to be revamped, needs to be looked at, needs to be looked at from a lot of different angles. Where it goes from here, I don’t think anybody really knows. So the point being, I don’t know what the effect is going to be down the road. I just know for us this is an opportunity to play another game against a really good team in a great game, great bowl game, and we’re going to cherish it and put our best foot forward and try to go win this game.”

Moore and Michigan lost to two teams in the CFP field – No. 2 Ohio State and No. 8 Oklahoma – and know that it has another high-quality opponent on its docket to close out the 2025 campaign.

“Yeah, they do [look like a playoff team],” Moore said. “Especially watching that last game against [Texas] A&M, they played their tails off. They’re a physical defense. Offensively, they’re explosive, they’ve got playmakers all over the place. So yeah, absolutely, they do.”

Michigan and Texas will kick off at 3 p.m. ET on Dec. 31 from Camping World Stadium in Orlando, televised via ABC.