​Welcome back to Rock M Nation’s annual opponent preview series of the upcoming season. Each week we will break down one opponent from the schedule in chronological order. Given that rosters are ever fluid – and this is done by a hobbyist rather than a pro – there could be some errors in history and current roster makeup. All mistakes are done on purpose and with ill intent because Nate Edwards doesn’t like you or your team.Arkansas-Pine BluffAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementkansasTroyMississippi StateFloridaTexas A&MOle MissArkansasTexas is one of those Tiffany brands of college football that should never be bad. And yet…Mack Brown thrived in the BCS era, compiling (and misplaying) all the talent in the world and appearing in the BCS Championship twice. But once he retired Texas struggled to find a suitable replacement that could do more than Mack, running through Charlie Strong (16-21 record at Texas) and Tom Herman (32-18) over seven years with very little to show for it.The flagship university of the flagship state of football has nearly unlimited resources and access to one of the great football incubators in the world and yet mismanagement in the program, accentuated by one of the more over-meddling booster corps, kept Texas in a weird limbo of good enough to be preseason title contenders but not good enough to get the opportunity.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnd while Steve Sarkisian is certainly not in the pantheon of the truly elite coaches, his tenure has seen enough consolidation of consistent win tallies that, from the outside anyway, Texas is almost back to the level they want to be.But, again, succeeding in the BCS era is not the same as the NIL era, and if you track those charts of all the blue blood teams I preview, you can see the drop of elites ranking in the 30-34 point range of the mid-aughts down to today’s level of elite that falls in the 22-28 point range. It’s easier to get a shot at the Playoff, now, but harder to close. Sark has made the Playoff once and, seemingly, is all in this year to do so again. But will that be enough in the new 9-game SEC game lifestyle?Anyway. Here’s what Texas did last year:Texas played well enough in the opener at Ohio State that they had an 82% chance to win, but lost. Of course, they also had a 16% chance of winning at Kentucky and won anyway, so I guess that balances out a bit. The complete no show against a listless Florida remains one of the more confusing outcomes of the 2025 season, but they also managed close calls against Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. Getting whacked by Georgia eliminated their chances of an SEC title or realistic Playoff berth, but taking down Texas A&M had to be a super fun way to close out the regular season. This was a 9-win team that managed a 10-win season with a new quarterback and, essentially, no running game. Not bad for a down year, huh?AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSteve Sarkisian has had a wild ride of a