Eight weeks into the 2026 regular college football season, the No. 11 Texas Longhorns (5-2, 2-2 SEC) are vying for a College Football Playoff spot. However, head coach Steve Sarkisian thinks the SEC’s nine-game conference schedule could hurt the playoff chances of Texas and other SEC teams. He said the added games have produced more losses that could affect the conference teams’ postseason chances compared to other conferences.

“Any way you slice it, it’s eight more losses. So if you are fortunate enough to be part of that discussion from the committee, how much is the committee going to value one more conference game in the SEC, right? And what does that look like?” Sarkisian said on Friday.

“Because here we are last week at the halfway mark of conference play and every team already had a loss. And there’s really good teams with multiple losses already. So what is it really going to look like when there’s 9-3 SEC teams compared to 10-2 or even 11-1 teams from other conferences? How much value is going to be placed on that? I think that’s why we were so adamant about if we’re going to go to nine conference games, let’s go to nine when we expand.”

However, fans online were quick to call out Sarkisian’s criticism of the nine-game expansion, as they viewed it as an excuse for not performing well enough.

“Champions don’t cry about playing tough opponents. Losers do. Iron sharpens Iron Tears shape crybabies,” wrote a fan on X.

The Texas Longhorns will next play the Mississippi State Bulldogs (4-3, 2-3 SEC) in Week 9 at the DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin on Saturday.

How Many Conference Games Does Each Power Four Program Play?

The schedule expansion by the SEC before the start of the 2026 college football season has nearly equalized the number of conference games played by the four power conferences.

The Big Ten and Big 12 have been using the nine-game conference system for quite a while. The Big 12 expanded its schedule to nine games in 2011, and the Big Ten made the switch in 2016.

Meanwhile, only 12 ACC teams play nine conference games this season, while the remaining five are only playing eight due to prior non-conference commitments. This, however, is going to change in the 2027 college football season, when 16 teams will play nine conference games; the exception is the Clemson Tigers, who will play only eight conference games in addition to two non-conference Power Four matchups.