Texas Football: Ranking the difficulty of every opponent in 2018
A ton of the focus for Texas football entering the 2018 campaign should be how difficult this schedule ahead is with only one opponent outside the Power 5.
Texas football has one of the toughest slates in the Big 12 this year through and through. It’s not really the conference matchups themselves that are the issue for the Longhorns in 2018. The Horns have to host a projected top 20 preseason team in the USC Trojans and travel to face the team that knocked off Texas in the 2017 season opener and will be tough in the Big 10 in the Maryland Terrapins.
Last season, the Horns finished with a final record of 7-6 (5-4 Big 12). In terms of improvement based off the 2016 campaign with Charlie Strong, Texas head football coach Tom Herman had a pretty successful 2017 season. The season was capped off with a double-digit point victory over a former conference foe in the Mizzou Tigers.
This time around, Texas lands road conference games against the Kansas State Wildcats, Oklahoma State Cowboys, Texas Tech Red Raiders, and Kansas Jayhawks. The home games come against the TCU Horned Frogs, West Virginia Mountaineers, Baylor Bears, and Iowa State Cyclones.
That just leaves the annual rivalry matchup with the Oklahoma Sooners in the Red River Shootout at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, TX. Considering the Red River Shootout is a neutral site game, the balance between the difficulty of the home and away contests seem to be a wash.
Texas gets its 2018 campaign started with Maryland at what is technically a neutral site on Sep. 1. It promises to be one of the most intriguing opening weekends game in the entire country.
The opportunity is there for Texas to make a run at the 2018 Big 12 Championship Game with some more improvement under the Herman regime in Austin. The 2018 Big 12 Championship is played at the home of the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on Dec. 1.
Here’s a look at a full ranking of the difficulty of every football opponent for the Texas Longhorns in 2018.