Tag: Southwest Conference

Texas-Arkansas kickoff time, Red River Shootout TV information announced

ESPN announced the kickoff time for Texas’ premier nonconference game against Arkansas. Additionally, TX/OU will be on ABC/ESPN this season.

ESPN announced the kickoff time for Texas’ premier nonconference game against Arkansas on Tuesday.

The Longhorns and Razorbacks will get underway at 6 p.m. CST and be televised on ESPN. The old Southwest Conference rivals are meeting in Fayetteville for the first time since 2004 and wrapping up a home and home series that begun in 2008.

Additionally, Sept. 9’s Red River Shootout was announced to be on ABC/ESPN this season, not Fox. Texas and Oklahoma have played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas since 1932 but will be back on the ESPN airwaves for the first time since 2017.

The 2018 Big 12 Championship featured on ESPN but was played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

ESPN networks will welcome some of the biggest rivalries in the sport, including No. 21 Texas at Arkansas on Saturday, Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. on ESPN. No. 3 Oklahoma will be showcased in its two top rivalry games on ESPN networks this fall. The fifth-longest rivalry in college football history, the Red River Showdown against the Longhorns is set for Saturday, Oct. 9 in Dallas.

Competing against the Texas-Arkansas matchup will be Michigan-Washington on ABC. The Big Ten/Pac-12 matchup will kickoff 30 minutes later.

Contact/Follow us @LonghornsWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas news, notes and opinions.

WATCH: Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman claims Texas is their main rival

According to Razorbacks head coach Sam Pittman, the Texas Longhorns are their main rival. A team they have played five times since 2000.

Rivalries are one of the biggest draws to the game of college football, and the Texas Longhorns are at the forefront of minds of many.

Schools within the state of Texas look to the Longhorns as their rivals. One of the greatest of those rivalries involved Texas and Texas A&M. However, that fierce hatred died on the football field in 2011. They are still rivals off the field, but it isn’t one that we have seen on the gridiron in a decade.

The Longhorns current most hated rival is the Oklahoma Sooners. They have been in a border war since 1900. They settle it every year in Dallas at the Cotton Bowl on the Texas state fairgrounds. A must-see game each and every year despite how each team is playing. The fans, the teams and the schools have a genuine hatred for each other.

Other schools such as Texas Tech, Texas Christian and Baylor probably feel like the Longhorns are their rivals at times. It boils down to how those fans feel. According to Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman, their fans lead him to believe that Texas is their biggest rivals.

Arkansas joined the Southwest Conference in 1915 and were conference rivals of the Longhorns from 1915-1991. The Razorbacks joined the Southeastern Conference in 1992, they have remained in that conference ever since. These two teams have met just five times since that day. Coach Pittman mentioned Texas ahead of the Aggies, which is quite comical considering they play Texas A&M every year.

It seems that quite a few schools view the Longhorns as their main rivals.

When you have a team in the spotlight every week regardless on if it is deserved, everyone wants to line up and take it from you.

Big 12: Exploring Conference, College Football Playoff expansion

Ivan Maisel of ESPN thinks now is the best time for conference expansion. Longhorns Wire explores how to expand the Big 12, playoffs.

Is there a better time than right now to explore the idea of conference expansion? ESPN’s Ivan Maisel doesn’t think so. In a recent post on ESPN Maisel stated now may be the best time to have that conversation. After all it wasn’t that long ago that Nebraska was looking to play football despite the Big Ten’s stance on a postponement of the season.

Hey, here’s a great idea during a pandemic: Let’s have West Virginia fly 1,400 miles to play a Big 12 game at Texas Tech on Oct. 24, but let’s not allow West Virginia to play Pittsburgh. After all, the Panthers, 75 miles away, are in the ACC.

Before the Pac-12 broke the emergency glass on its 2020 season, the conference approved of Colorado flying 1,300 miles to play at Washington but thought it too risky for the Buffaloes to drive 100 miles to play at Colorado State.

And there’s Nebraska, which a decade ago sued for divorce from the Big 12 (née Big Eight), dissolving a marriage consummated in 1928 to grab the money and security and money and money offered by the Big Ten. Last week the Big Ten told Nebraska it couldn’t play football this fall, which went over in the Cornhusker State like, oh, I don’t know, stalk rot.

Maisel brings up a good point about traveling during a pandemic. Teams can’t play those who are reasonably close but yet are expected to fly across the country to participate in a conference game that is deemed safer. For instance any Big 12 team traveling to Morgantown, West Virginia doesn’t seem like the best move. So in the interest of shaking things up, we look at how the Big 12 could expand.

First is the new North Division.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5

New realignment idea to give Southwest Conference a rebirth

SI’s Pat Forde has generated an idea that would give the NCAA FBS a facelift. It would bring the Southwest Conference back with a twist.

Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde has a crazy idea under the current climate, NCAA realignment. With COVID-19 possibly factoring in to limit travel, this idea from Forde would limit travel for the conference games. Each conference would have 12 members and it would do away with the independents such as BYU and the like.

Ten leagues, each with 12 members, each designed to maximize proximity and reduce travel demands and costs. All current conference structures are broken and reassembled. There are no more than eight Power 5 programs in a single new conference, and no fewer than four. And there are no independents—yes, Notre Dame is in a conference.

Forde also mentioned how it would change the College Football Playoff comment.

All 10 conference champions, plus two at-large teams chosen by a selection committee, advance to the expanded College Football Playoff. The teams are seeded by the committee. The top four receive a first-round bye, while seeds 5–8 host seeds 9–12 at their home stadiums the first weekend of December. Quarterfinals are played the next week at the home stadiums of seeds 1–4. The semifinals and championship game are conducted under the current CFP format.

Essentially every team would play each other with one non-conference game each season and no conference championship game. For schools like Texas, the idea would to give the Southwest Conference a rebirth. It would bring back former conference rivalries such as Houston, Rice, SMU while maintaining the Texas-Oklahoma Red River Rivalry. The Sooners and Cowboys were actually part of the Big Eight before the creation of the Big 12 but would join the new SWC.

The new Southwest Conference:

  • Baylor
  • Houston
  • North Texas
  • Oklahoma
  • Oklahoma State
  • Rice
  • Southern Methodist
  • Texas Christian
  • Texas
  • Texas A&M
  • Texas Tech
  • Tulsa

This new conference alignment may not sit well with some of the brass at Texas A&M but it would bring back the Longhorns-Aggies rivalry game. That would be good for the state and college football. After all what makes the sport so great are the rivalry games.