There weren’t many moments for Florida fans to celebrate last season, but one of the highlight moments was the win over Texas inside The Swamp. The Gators shut down Arch Manning and crew en route to what turned out to be one of the more consequential upsets of the season. Florida's win wound up being the reason why Texas missed the playoffs in 2025.
The two teams are set to face off for the third year in a row right before Florida has its bye week. Based on Steve Sarkisian’s comments at SEC Media Days on Thursday, this year’s matchup might come down to which team has learned its lesson the most this offseason.
Steve Sarkisian admits Florida exposed a major Texas problem last season
One of the themes that Sarkisian hit on was the struggles that Texas had on the road last season. All three of their losses last season came away from the friendly confines of Austin, including their October defeat at The Swamp:
“We've got to relish in our ability to play on the road because we are playing at Kyle Field. We are playing at Death Valley. We are going to Tennessee. We are going to Missouri. Those are tough places to play.
In our conference there are no easy places on the road, so we've got to be better in those hostile environments of execution, of minimizing the self-inflicted wounds, and then having the ability to finish in the fourth quarter.”
But it’s not clear that Sarkisian seems to fully grasp that the flaws with his team in 2025 went beyond just having to play on the road or having a tough schedule. Sarkisian continued his months-long diatribe to paint a picture that Texas deserved a playoff spot last year, and the only reason they didn’t make it is that they scheduled Ohio State in the non-conference rather than a cupcake:
“Last year we didn't win the game at Ohio State. So I'm torn because I have two thoughts on this. One is if we beat Ohio State last year, surely we're in a much better position when it comes to the playoffs, but on the other side of it is, if I don't play Ohio State and I play Jones Junior High, and we're 10-2 and our two losses are to Georgia and Florida, we're a playoff team.”
Texas lost to a coach fired two weeks later
Sarkisian and the rest of the Texas contingent keep floating their loss to Florida as if it was no big deal. We here at Hail Florida Hail exist to point out that the team you lost to still fired its coach two weeks later. USF figured out how to beat Florida in The Swamp, but Texas couldn’t.
And so as much as Sarkisian has talked about trying to learn from last year, it’s not clear that he has learned a lesson at all. If getting on a plane and playing on the road causes you to lose, then your team has mindset issues that probably stem from you, as the coach, having given them that exit ramp.
While this year’s game will be in Austin, the lesson Florida can take from last year’s win is that if you can find a way to rattle Texas at all, whether that be with chipiness or physicality, they are prone to fold because they have a coach who is prone to fold.
While Texas will be one of the few teams Florida will face in 2026 who will have a better roster on paper, last year showcased that the Gators are capable of the upset.
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