5 reasons Texas A&M football will far outperform the Longhorns in 2024

Texas will struggle with their first SEC schedule

Anytime an SEC team is able to get Vanderbilt as part of their conference slate, you can chalk it up as a lower-half schedule as regards difficulty. The league office was kind enough to offer the Longhorns the Commodores as part of their initial slate. Even so, I still think the Horns will struggle to win consistently in their first season in conference.

Take a look at this past year. Texas found themselves in fourth-quarter dogfights against Wyoming and Houston. When the Horns brought their A-game, they were a decent team, dominating the likes of Baylor and Kansas. But there were far too many times last year—and really over the entirety of Sark’s tenure—where the team just didn’t play up to what they should.

You can squeak by on that when your down games come against the Houston Cougars, of course. But say they have an off day against the Kentucky Wildcats, or at Arkansas, or against Jeff Lebby’s Mississippi State. Will they be so fortunate then?

The grind of the SEC schedule is what teams outside the conference don’t understand about it. It’s winning week in and week out against squads that have enough talent to jump up and bite you—there’s absolutely no room to coast in this league.

I feel confident that, as Texas fans look at their schedule, they feel as though they should win every game outside of maybe Georgia and Michigan. But, I’m warning you now, Horns fans—there will be a game like this for you at some point. You won’t know which ahead of time. Trap games are trap games for a reason. But one of these weeks you will find yourself down 11 in the fourth quarter against a far less talented team and wonder how it got to this point.