SEC Scheduling Conflicts Put Texas vs. Texas A&M Rivalry Revival In Jeopardy

Rivalries are just one of the many things that make college football great, and one might be in jeopardy for the Texas Longhorns after the move to the Southeastern Conference.

The Texas Longhorns will always have the Red River Showdown against the Oklahoma Sooners, but a scheduling conflict may put another rivalry in jeopardy.

With Texas and Oklahoma joining the Southeastern Conference in 2024 and expanding it to 16 teams, there have been meetings to discuss how to schedule seasons going forward, according to 247Sports' Brandon Marcello. The two formats that have been proposed are eight conference games with one permanent rival and seven rotating opponents each year or nine conference games with three permanent rivals and six rotating opponents each year.

If the eight-game format is selected, then the Longhorns will have a permanent rival with the Sooners, which means the highly anticipated renewal of the Lone Star Showdown between Texas and Texas A&M would not be played on a yearly basis.

Marcello said Texas administrators support the nine-game format which would give it both Oklahoma and Texas A&M as two of its three annual games. The Longhorns will have representatives at the SEC meetings, but are not allowed to vote on the future scheduling format, Marcello said.

With SEC schools operating under the current eight-conference-game format, a school like Missouri would have to cancel a conference game through 2031, as the Tigers have four non-conference games scheduled for each season until then.

The Longhorns and Aggies have played each other 118 times with Texas owning the all-time series 76-37-5. The two squared off annually starting from 1915 to 2011, ending the yearly matchups when Texas A&M joined the SEC. They have not played each other since.

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You can follow Casey Smith on Twitter @casey_smith2419

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