Steve Sarkisian Takes Shot At Texas Tech's Weak Big 12 Schedule

The Texas Longhorns have long been the focal point of College Football. When someone from the program speak, it often makes others listen, or at the very least, makes its waves on social media from interactions.

Now that there is no difference, after head coach Steve Sarkisian spoke at a luncheon about how the inclusion of the strength of schedule metric for the committee, when making their decisions about the College Football Playoff.

For him, it was less about how it would help his program or conference, and more about how it should be used because a certain team from the Lone Star State has an easier path.

Why Sarkisian Is Bothered By the Strength of Schedule Metric

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian gestures after a game against the Georgia Bulldogs at Sanford Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images | Dale Zanine-Imagn Images

College football is all about parity, and how the regular season is built upon weeks of games to find the 12 best teams that will fight it out to be named national champions at the season's end. For some, those matchups are no different from heated regular-season games, and for others, they represent a stark difference in competition levels.

“There’s a team in our state that plays in another conference that has a schedule that I would argue if I played with our twos and our threes, we could go undefeated, and they’ll probably make the CFP this year,” Sarkisian said while speaking on the topic.

Without naming any programs specifically, it's easy to decipher that he is speaking about the Texas Tech Red Raiders, the new sleeping giant in the Big 12 that is now spending NIL money akin to the top spenders in the country.

Wins are still the number one key factor when determining how great a team is, after all, the games are decided on the field, and not on paper. For the Longhorns, though, they play in the toughest conference college football has to offer, with the 15th-toughest conference strength of schedule, which was 10th in the SEC alone.

The Red Raiders, on the other hand, had the 24th-toughest conference schedule, ranking No. 2 in the Big 12. The toughest schedule the conference offered was BYU at No. 22, which ranked behind 15 of the 16 SEC schools (Texas A&M was the lone program with a lower conference strength of schedule at No. 23).

Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian was asked by a fan at The Touchdown Club of Houston if there is any way to get the College Football Playoff Committee to factor in strength of schedule in their decision-making. Sarkisian said there's a team in this state that plays in another… pic.twitter.com/EvqDAoHA5E
— Anwar Richardson (@AnwarRichardson) May 21, 2026

The Longhorns signed up to play in the SEC, and they knew that the challenges would be tougher, but after being led to believe that the committee would use strength of schedules to affect placements, the Longhorns are rightfully slighted by other teams with easier paths being treated so highly.

The Red Raiders appear to be doing everything they can to remain as the flagship program for the Big 12, while the Longhorns have reloaded the roster in their hopes of bringing a national championship back to Austin for the first time in over 20 years.

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