Texas football adds non-conference game for 2028 but more holes remain in future years

The SEC still has not made a formal announcement on whether teams will play eight or nine league games in 2026 and beyond. Still, Texas is acting to plug open holes on its open schedule anyway.

School officials announced Thursday that Texas will play Louisiana Tech in the 2028 season opener at Royal-Memorial Stadium.

The two programs have met only once previously with Texas winning 45-14 in 2019.

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As of now, Texas has three non-conference games scheduled for 2025: at Ohio State, San Jose State and UTEP. And UT has three scheduled for 2026: Texas State, Ohio State and UTSA all at home.

In 2027, UT will play the return match against Michigan by hosting the Wolverines and then hosting UTEP. Those are the only two games scheduled for that year so far.

In 2028, Texas was already scheduled to play UTSA as part of its rotating contract with UTSA and UTEP. Louisiana Tech plugs another hole.

The SEC opted to play eight conference games in 2024 and 2025 in the first two years of a 16-team team format. League officials also wanted to see how the new 12-team College Football Playoff format affected things.

Right now, the SEC’s television contract with ESPN is based on eight league games. Commissioner Greg Sankey wants to play nine, which allows for each team to have three permanent rivals and six rotating teams every two years. The SEC has to convince ESPN that nine games is worth paying more.