Just how difficult is Texas' 2024 Southeastern Conference schedule?
On3’s Jesse Simonton released his post-spring and post-portal SEC power rankings on Monday, and the newcomer Longhorns were his No. 2 team in the league behind the Georgia Bulldogs.
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The ranking comes as no surprise, but closer inspection reveals that the bulk of Texas’ schedule during its maiden voyage in the SEC is against teams that (at this juncture) Simonton believes to be in the bottom half of the league.
Only two games from Texas’ 2024 schedule, the Red River Shootout against fellow newcomer Oklahoma and the home tilt against powerhouse Georgia the week after, are against teams viewed as top-8 within the SEC.
Georgia missed the College Football Playoff last season after falling three points short against Alabama in the SEC Championship. The loss to the Crimson Tide was their only blemish on a 13-1 season that featured an 8-0 run through the SEC. Oklahoma, who topped the Longhorns 34-30 last year, finished 10-3 with a 7-2 record in the Big 12.
Aside from OU and UGA, every other team Texas will face in conference play in 2024 received a bottom-half-of-the-league assessment. Not only that, every one of them finished .500 or worse in SEC play last year.
For some schools, that lead to a new coaching staff. Mississippi State dumped Zach Arnett for Jeff Lebby in the midst of the Bulldogs’ 1-7 SEC campaign. Texas A&M said goodbye to Jimbo Fisher and hello to Mike Elko in the middle of their 4-4 year in the conference.
Five other schools did not make a move. Arkansas under Sam Pittman also went 1-7 in SEC play, but his buyout proved to be a cost the Razorback athletic department was not willing to shoulder and they stuck with him entering the 2024 season.
Clark Lea went 0-8 at Vanderbilt in the SEC, managing wins only over Hawaii and Alabama A&M in the regular season. Florida kept Billy Napier after a tumultuous 3-5 SEC season. Kentucky held onto Mark Stoops after his flirtations with Texas A&M. Of course, Oklahoma’s Brent Venables comes back for year three in Norman after his first 10-win campaign as a head coach.
What that shows is few of the Longhorns’ 2024 opponents save for Georgia and Oklahoma enter the upcoming season with real momentum. The transfer portal and coaching changes can turn fortunes quickly and render previous data obsolete, but that doesn’t paper over the fact that the seven teams in the SEC on the Longhorns’ 2024 schedule combined to go 20-36 in 2023 during the regular season.
Obviously, Kirby Smart‘s program makes up 40 percent of those wins and zero percent of the losses.
Wins and losses can explain only so much. ESPN’s 2024 preseason SP+, which has not been updated following the second portal window after Bill Connelly released rankings in February, has Georgia as the No. 1 team and Texas at No. 4 behind the Dawgs, No. 2 Ohio State, and No. 3 Oregon.
As far as other teams on Texas’ schedule along with Georgia, it’s…
13. Texas A&M
14. Oklahoma
33. Florida
40. Kentucky
56. Arkansas
74. Mississippi State
105. Vanderbilt
How does that compare to Texas’ 2023 Big 12 schedule? A look at the 2023 SP+ postseason rankings, where Texas finished No. 6, says the Horns battled…
15. Kansas State
16. Oklahoma
25. Kansas
35. TCU
37. Iowa State
42. Oklahoma State
43. Texas Tech
76. BYU
95. Houston
97. Baylor
SEC average? 42.
Big 12 average? 48.
The Big 12 average isn’t going to change, but the SEC average very well could go up or down when Connelly releases a post-spring update. But even if it were to rise a few spots, the change is relative to the expected improvement by the Longhorns as they head into a new league. Texas only lost one starter to the portal in the spring and gained several who will see regular snaps for this year’s team.
Texas’ 2023 final SP+ rating? 23.2. The 2024 preseason rating from February? 28.7.
Two of the road destinations on Texas’ schedule cannot be discounted when offering preseason assessments nor can they be probably measured by advanced metrics. Hate is tough to quantify. Texas A&M and Arkansas both have vitriol for Texas that dates back a century and both will host the Longhorns this season. Computers can measure players and stats, but that level of disdain paired with deafening crowd noise cannot be fully waved over by numbers.
How does Texas’ schedule compare to one of its opponents? Let’s look at No. 10 Florida. They not only have an annual faceoff with the top-rated Bulldogs, but they have to face No. 2 Texas, No. 4 Ole Miss, No. 6 Tennessee, No. 7 LSU, and No. 9 Texas A&M. Their SEC reprieves are No. 11 Kentucky and No. 15 Mississippi State, but that might be undone by their end-of-season matchup with a Florida State team that’ll likely claim the Atlantic Coast Conference’s top spot.
The Longhorns are going into a conference with more teams that have the capability to win the national championship. Several of those programs can do that in the upcoming season where a 12-team College Football Playoff awaits the sport’s best.
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But while overall team quality may go up in the SEC, the Longhorns’ quality is up as well. Texas’ debut campaign in its new league features an extremely manageable schedule and is likely to be more successful than what some well-known voices may be willing to admit.
