One of college football’s upcoming marquee nonconference games might not get played after all.

On Thursday during SEC media days, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was asked about the future of Longhorns scheduling as the league moves to a nine-game slate. As other teams pull back on nonconference games, Texas may follow the trend of programs looking to soften their slates to increase their chances of making the College Football Playoff field.

That could mean the scrapping of a home-and-home series with Notre Dame, scheduled to be played in South Bend in 2028 and back in Austin in 2029.

“I don’t know yet about Notre Dame,” Sarkisian said. “We’ll see, because I think the (CFP selection) committee has to show us what happens now and what’s the value that they’re placing on strength of schedule and are we going to let a 9-3 team in as an at-large? We’ll find out, and I think this year will be a great test to that of what that looks like.”

Sarkisian campaigned for Texas to make last year’s 12-team Playoff at 9-3, with an opening-week loss at Ohio State plus two SEC losses: a blowout at Georgia and a loss to a Florida team that finished 4-8 and fired its coaching staff. Texas also notched marquee wins against Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, finishing No. 13 in the CFP rankings, behind No. 11 Notre Dame — the first team left out — and No. 12 BYU. Texas was the highest ranked three-loss team after the regular season and finished ahead of two-loss Vanderbilt and Utah.

If the CFP doesn’t expand, the nonconference scheduling angst may persist in the SEC and Big Ten. Both conferences play nine conference games, and the SEC has taken it a step further by mandating teams play one Power 4 opponent in their nonconference slates. While that would seem to save the Notre Dame series — athletic director Pete Bevacqua told The Athletic at ACC spring meetings that the series with Texas would be played — Texas may see the degree of difficult being too high to keep it.

“So is the juice worth the squeeze or not?” Sarkisian said. “That’s what we’re all tasked with.”

After two years of the 12-team CFP, it’s almost impossible to know. Indiana won last year’s national championship after playing a nonconference schedule of Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State. But runner-up Miami made the field almost entirely based on its win over Notre Dame to open the year.

Sarkisian can appreciate there’s no right answer here. Texas beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa three years ago to basically punch the Longhorns’ CFP ticket in September. When the Longhorns blew out Michigan in Ann Arbor a year later, their eventual 11-2 resume got a similar bump. It’s hard to know exactly what credit Texas got for playing at Ohio State and losing in 2025 because the first CFP rankings were still two months away; by the time they were released, the Longhorns had lost at Florida, followed by uninspiring wins against Kentucky and Mississippi State.

“So I’m torn because I have two thoughts on this,” Sarkisian said. “One is if we beat Ohio State last year, surely we’re in a much better position when it comes to the playoffs, but on the other side of it is, if I don’t play Ohio State and I play Jones Junior High, and we’re 10-2 and our two losses are to Georgia and Florida, we’re a playoff team.

“But like anything in this world, if you want to be really good at something, you got to take risk.”

The schedule saber-rattling may put Notre Dame at risk, assuming the CFP doesn’t expand by 2028. The Irish are already locked into their five-game agreement with the ACC, although a separate 12-game series with Clemson means sometimes Notre Dame could play seven ACC teams in a season. The Notre Dame-USC rivalry will not be played for at least the next four seasons.

If Texas walks away from the Notre Dame series, would future SEC opponents Alabama and Florida follow? Would future Big Ten opponents Michigan and Indiana do the same? Notre Dame has scheduled home-and-home series with all four of those programs in the next decade. And if those programs do drop the Irish, would Notre Dame have a schedule worthy of at-large selection?

Notre Dame was famously the first team left out of last year’s CFP, in part because it finished with just one win over a team ranked in the CFP’s final Top 25 (No. 16 USC). It played just three ranked teams in the final poll. This year’s schedule might feel much the same, with Miami, BYU and SMU likely ranked in the Top 25 but the rest of the schedule lacking in likely CFP contenders.

That “squeeze” may one of the reasons why Notre Dame has advocated for a 24-team CFP. It’s not that schedule strength would automatically be rewarded differently, it’s the theory that a 9-3 regular season wouldn’t mean automatic exclusion. If last year’s bracket included 24 teams, nine teams would have entered the postseason with three losses.

“So, yes, there’s risk involved in playing a high-level non-conference schedule, but there’s a lot of value in that win,” Sarkisian said. “There’s a lot of value in that win if you can get the win.”

Now it’s a matter of Texas deciding whether Notre Dame is a risk worth taking.

TAMPA, Fla. — Arch Manning is graduating from the University of Texas in December with a degree in Communication & Leadership, but has no idea what he’s going to do with his life if his football career doesn’t pan out.

He does know, however, one profession he won’t get into. “I’m not doing anything in the media,” the third-generation quarterback said through a grin Thursday at SEC media days.

It’s no secret Manning and coach Steve Sarkisian haven’t forgotten about the criticism the quarterback took from national pundits when he struggled out of the gate last season, his first as Texas’ full-time starter.

But Manning and the Longhorns are in a much different spot now with a little more than six weeks to go until their season-opener against Texas State at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Sept. 5.

Manning is once again a preseason favorite to win the Heisman, and Texas owns the third-best odds, according to BetMGM, to win the national title behind Ohio State and Notre Dame following an offseason in which Steve Sarkisian bolstered the roster through the transfer portal.

The Longhorns signed the No. 1 receiver available in Cam Coleman, beefed up the backfield with Hollywood Smothers and Raleek Brown, added three starters on the offensive line and signed four starters off other Power 4 rosters for new defensive coordinator Will Muschamp. And Sarkisian revealed Thursday that Texas will welcome John Meredith, a five-star cornerback commitment, into the program this fall after he reclassified this week.

Talent once again won’t be a problem at Texas. But the question remains: Can Manning and the team live up to high expectations and win the program’s first national championship in over two decades?

“I think what he got through probably would have melted or destroyed 99 percent of the people in his shoes,” Sarkisian said Thursday. “I think right now he’s a very dangerous player because he learned a lot from last season, and he is surrounded by some good players. I think that he’s a guy that’s poised for a heck of a season.”

Establishing chemistry among 47 new players, including 22 transfers, has been Sarkisian’s primary focus during the offseason. The coach said he started the process in February — months earlier than last year.

“I failed our team a year ago by doing it that way,” he said. “I felt like we didn’t have the culture needed early in the season to make that happen, to be the team that we were capable of being. I learned my lesson.”

Manning took Texas’ receivers home with him to New Orleans recently for his grandfather’s birthday. They hit Bourbon Street, played catch, swam and enjoyed some barbecue.

This week, Sarkisian had his players compete in a scavenger hunt around campus, which ended at the football stadium. Manning led one group; star edge rusher Colin Simmons led another. They tied.

“Everyone is sweating bullets; it’s 100 degrees in Austin right now, and they’re having a blast together as a team,” Sarkisian said. “Those are the moments that are going to get us through the tough fourth quarters.”

What matters in the end for Texas is that it’s playing together and winning well into January. Few athletic programs are as well fortified financially, and playing for championships is the standard in Austin.

Manning, though, doesn’t seem to be concerned about that right now. He’s got Spanish II to pass this summer and some golf courses to attack before camp opens.

“I just want to be remembered as a good teammate and someone who did whatever it took to help the team win and help the team get closer,” he said. “I’m not really worried about my legacy. I just want to win games and have a good time.”