Texas' 2023 schedule has a Southwest Conference tinge to it
For 81 years, the Southwest Conference was a truly regional organization headlined by feuds between Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, Arkansas, Rice, SMU, TCU, Texas Tech, and Houston. As it tends to do, realignment tore the longtime Lone Star State (plus one) association apart in the 1990s. Arkansas decided to head east for the Southeastern Conference, while Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor affixed their destinies with those of the Big 8 to form the Big 12.
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Houston, SMU, TCU, and Rice were left out of the merger. The Cougars found a home in Conference USA, while SMU, TCU, and Rice joined the Western Athletic Conference.
Since then, even more conference realignment has taken place. Once left out of the Big 12, TCU just represented the league in the College Football Playoff National Championship. Houston, after stints in C-USA and the American Athletic Conference, will join the Big 12 ahead of the 2023 season at the same time Texas and Oklahoma are trying expedite their exits for the SEC.
What’s certain is Texas remains a full-fledged Big 12 member for the 2023 season, and the Longhorns’ 2023 schedule features matchups with every Texas-based team in the conference. That includes a trip to Houston to face the now Power 5 Cougars. Throw in a matchup with the Rice Owls to open the season, and UT’s slate has a strong Southwest Conference influence in it.
During the 2023 campaign, Texas will play five of the institutions who were in the SWC during the league’s final season (So does Kansas State as part of their Big 12 schedule).
The Longhorns open the year on Sept. 2 when Rice travels to Austin. Texas is on a 15-game winning streak over the Owls, with Rice’s last win taking place in 1994. Rice was one of five different teams to claim the SWC title that season.
Texas then opens Big 12 play with a Sept. 23 trip to Waco to battle the Baylor Bears. Three weeks pass before the Longhorns face Houston for the first time since 2002 and for the first time on Cullen Blvd. since the infamous 2001 game at Robertson Stadium.
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Two more weeks stand between the Longhorns’ trip to Fort Worth to face the TCU Horned Frogs on Nov. 11. In UT’s last trip to Amon G. Carter Stadium in 2021, the Bijan Robinson-led Horns eked out the program’s first win in Fort Worth since 2013.
The regular season ends on Friday, Nov. 24 when the Texas Tech Red Raiders, once a member of the Border Conference prior to joining the SWC, travels to Austin for the rivalry contest.
In future seasons, there should still be a SWC presence on Texas schedules. If the Longhorns were to enter the SEC for the 2024 season, matchups with Texas A&M and Arkansas become a strong possibility not just for that first season but in seasons to follow.
However, there aren’t any former SWC teams on future non-conference schedules. There will be matchups with UT System schools, like with UTEP and UTSA. Even Texas State is supposed to make the short trek up IH-35 in 2026.
But there may never be a schedule with as many members of Texas’ former conference home as there is on the Longhorns’ 2023 schedule. For UT to win the Big 12 Conference in what could be its final season in the league, the Longhorns will have to win games against former members of the Southwest Conference.
