Steve Sarkisian details Ohio State prep: "We'll be ready, and we'll be motivated"

For the third straight year, Texas football will be taking on a juggernaut out-of-conference opponent in the first two weeks of the season.

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Two straight defending national champions and all three games on the road, Texas’ newest chapter in their crusade against blue bloods stops in Columbus to face the Ohio State Buckeyes on August 30.

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian made his long-awaited appearance on the 3rd and Longhorn podcast, hosted by many of the top names and former players in the Texas media sphere. Sarkisian’s hour-long chat featured analysis on program building, the Arch Manning effect, and the city of Austin, but it’s hard to look past what may be the most important topic of the offseason at the moment—the buildup to playing Ohio State.

“At some point, you need new, so right around that time in the dog days of camp we’ll pivot and start getting ready for Ohio State,” Sarkisian said. “This is going to be a heck of a challenge. They’re a great team, they’ve got a lot of great players coming back. They’ll have a lot of confidence. It’s a tough place to play. But we’ll be ready, and we’ll be motivated.”

Texas’ trip to Columbus in week one has the potential to feature the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the nation, as the two teams share the top odds of winning the national championship. Lee Corso’s final mascot head selection on College GameDay only adds to the hype of the 11 a.m. matchup.

See you week 1 @CollegeGameDay 🤘 https://t.co/FimRois1pF

— Texas Football (@TexasFootball) June 10, 2025

Sarkisian noted that preparation for this kind of game is a double-edged sword. While the Longhorns must spend the spring and summer preparing fundamentals and foundations that will last throughout the year, Sarkisian has used this matchup as fuel for the fire.

“In the same token, there’s nothing better for (strength and conditioning coach Torre) Becton than to throw that Ohio State jab at the four o’clock run this afternoon at the sand pit,” Sarkisian said. “‘Ohio State is working out right now, too.'”

Sarkisian notes that games like Alabama two seasons prior and Michigan last year have been extremely beneficial to the team, noting the “springboard” effect that comes with playing teams of this caliber.

“Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State on the road. If you don’t think this has helped your team in November, December, and January, that is huge,” Sarkisian said.

Sarkisian is one of CFB’s biggest believers in scheduling strong out-of-conference opponents year in and year out, which has helped Texas’ College Football Playoff seeding in past years. If the Longhorns had scheduled Rice instead of Alabama in 2022, Texas likely gets left out of the four-team playoff.

What Sarkisian doesn’t want, however, is for either Texas or Ohio State to be negatively affected late in the year for scheduling a game of this caliber.

“In this day and age of the 12-team playoff, I surely hope the committee doesn’t punish either of the teams that play in that game for playing in that game,” Sarkisian said. “There’s a lot of teams that avoid these games.”

For instance, Georgia’s out-of-conference schedule features two low-tier G5 teams, an FCS school, and their yearly bout with Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets are a strong team with upset potential, but a win against Georgia would be just that, an upset. Ole Miss’s toughest challenge is against Tulane at home, Tennessee’s is a neutral site matchup against Syracuse, and Penn State doesn’t even play a top-100 school in the nation before Week 5. If Texas were to be compared to schools like these, the context of a tough OOC schedule must be taken into account.

Sarkisian’s impressive road record in the last few seasons gives reasons for Texas fans to be confident in this matchup, even with Jeremiah Smith, Caleb Downs, and one of the rowdiest fan bases in the nation waiting for them.

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With just over two months to go before the much-anticipated matchup, the Longhorns are getting closer and closer to that training camp pivot, with all eyes focusing on the Buckeyes.