Texas football team's first SEC schedule includes Georgia, Texas A&M in 2024

Rivalries, rowdy road trips and a Royal welcome for the current king of college football.

Texas’ first foray into the SEC will include all of the above and more, as Longhorn fans found out with the release of the conference’s 2024 schedule Wednesday.

The Longhorns will visit Texas A&M — much to the apparent satisfaction of Aggie athletic director Ross Bjork, who insisted throughout the SEC meetings in Destin, Fla., earlier this month that the first game between the blood rivals since 2011 would take place at Kyle Field in College Station. Texas will also travel to face old rival Arkansas as well as Vanderbilt. UT will face Oklahoma in the familiar confines of the Cotton Bowl, with the Sooners serving as the host team.

A visit from 2022 national champion Georgia is the highlight of Texas’ 2024 conference home slate. Florida, Kentucky and Mississippi State will also visit Royal-Memorial Stadium.

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All dates and times for the 2024 conference schedule will be determined later.

The Longhorns' 2024 nonconference schedule is already set. They will open their season at home against Colorado State on Aug. 31, travel to Michigan on Sept. 7 and then return to Austin to play UTSA on Sept. 14. Texas officials also announced that the Longhorns will play Louisiana-Monroe in the fourth nonconference game, but that contest can be scheduled at any point in the season. That means SEC games for the Longhorns could begin as soon as Sept. 21, 2024.

Texas and Oklahoma will join the SEC after a long two years slogging through negotiations with the Big 12, which will include the two athletic powerhouse for just one more season.

Despite announcing their intention to join the SEC back in the summer of 2021, the Longhorns and Sooners had been contractually obligated to remain in the Big 12 until the end of the 2024-25 school year. In February, both schools reached an agreement with the Big 12 to officially become SEC members on July 1, 2024.

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Debate over scheduling in the revamped SEC began immediately. Would the conference split into a pair of eight-team divisions after Texas and Oklahoma expanded the league to 16 schools? Would teams play an eight- or nine-game conference schedule? And would the SEC place schools in four-team pods, which would mean that each football team would have three permanent rivals?

Ultimately, SEC officials decided to kick the can down the road until next summer, when Texas and Oklahoma become official members. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said the 2024 schedule is a one-year decision, with the league planning to come to an agreement on a more permanent format in the next year.

Both Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte and Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione have publicly supported a nine-game league model, which would include three permanent rivals. In particular, Del Conte has expressed support for playing Arkansas and Texas A&M — both ancient foes of the Longhorns whose rivalry roots stretch back more than a century in the old Southwest Conference — on a yearly basis.

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“Those three schools would be fantastic for us,” he told the Statesman in Destin. “We’ve had a huge history together. (Former Arkansas coach) Frank Broyles and (former Texas coach) Darrell Royal both retired on the same night after a game at DKR in 1976. So we have a lot of fans who are looking at Arkansas and a lot who are looking at A&M. So all those water cooler conversations are spectacular.”

Texas A&M football coach Jimbo Fisher and Bjork have made it clear they want Texas as an annual rival, and Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman told the Statesman at the meetings in Destin that he wants the Longhorns on the Razorbacks' permanent schedule.

Sankey has said the league will "try to honor traditional rivalries” in any scheduling discussions.

The SEC is certainly spreading the wealth when it comes to greeting its newcomers; every current SEC team will play at least one of the former Big 12 powers in the 2024 football season.

More:Holding it down: Sarkisian, Longhorns athletics closes out Texas Fight Tour in Houston

Despite his oft-repeated motto about all gas, Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian sought to tap the breaks — for one more season — on all the SEC talk during a visit to boosters in Houston earlier this year.

"We're still in the Big 12, guys," he told the crowd. "I know everybody wants to talk about the SEC in 2024 and what our schedule looks like in ’24 and who's playing who. ... That's ’24. We're in 2023, and we're in the Big 12."

Howdy, folks: Texas' 2024 SEC football schedule

On Wednesday, the SEC released its conference schedule for the 2024 season. Dates and times will be released later. Texas SEC opponents in 2024 will be:

Home games

Florida

Georgia

Kentucky

Mississippi State

Road games           

Arkansas

Texas A&M

Vanderbilt

Neutral site

Oklahoma (in Dallas)