Texas Baseball Set To Play in Loaded Tournament Early Next Season

The 2026 college baseball season may have ended Monday night, but the preparations for 2027 have already begun.

With the transfer portal and roster construction in full view, the Texas Longhorns already know where they will be in the third weekend of February. The Longhorns will be one of six teams featured in the annual Shriners Children’s College Showdown in Arlington, Texas.

The Shriners Children's College Showdown is the first of two early-season tournaments played at Globe Life Field. This will be Texas' fourth appearance in the non-conference tournament since the start of the event in 2021.

Early Season Test For Texas

Texas Longhorns left fielder Anthony Pack Jr. (6) drives in run against the Alabama Crimson Tide during the second inning at Charles Schwab Field. | Steven Branscombe-Imagn Images

In the Jim Schlossnagle era, Texas has found a lot of success in early-season nonconference tournaments. Playing in three, the Longhorns have won all three, most recently the Bruce Bolt Classic in Houston in 2026.

Texas opened up the Schlossnagle era with the Shriners Children’s College Showdown crown in 2025, going 2-1 in the field, beating Ole Miss and Oklahoma State.

Here are the other teams that will also be competing in the Shriners Children’s College Showdown:

- TCU Horned Frogs

- Virginia Cavaliers

- Clemson Tigers

- Arizona Wildcats

- Oklahoma Sooners

These early-season tournaments are a great test to show off the strength of a team. UCLA proved it last season in the second tournament at Globe Life Field, sweeping its three ranked opponents, including a top-4 victory over Mississippi State.

The 2027 field for the Shriners Children College Showdown is another competitive field, with the headliners being the defending national champion, the Oklahoma Sooners, and No. 5 Texas.

The other intriguing teams include the TCU Horned Frogs, one of the bubble teams that missed the tournament, and the Virginia Cavaliers, who made the tournament this year, falling in the Hattiesburg Regional. The Arizona Wildcats and Clemson Tigers round out the six-team field in Arlington.

The Longhorns will either face Virginia, Clemson, TCU, or Arizona in the college showdown with the three-game set against Oklahoma to be played in Norman later in the season when Southeastern Conference play starts.

Arguably, the most intriguing matchup for Texas and Schlossnagle is against TCU, his former team that he built from the ground up for 17 years before he left after the 2021 season for Texas A&M. Schlossnagle still has a lot of connections in Fort Worth, with the Horned Frogs skipper, Kirk Saarloss, serving as an assistant under Schlossnagle for nine years.

The Longhorns even used the Horned Frogs' facilities the last time they played in the Shriners Children’s College Showdown, hitting for one day in Fort Worth to prepare for the tournament.

If the Horns and Frogs meet again, it will be the first time since the 2024 season that the old conference foes will face each other. It would also mark just the second time that Schlossnagle has faced his old club.

The full schedule for the 2027 Texas Baseball season is expected to be released around early October.

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