College football's 2026 season is set to deliver one of its biggest early-season showdowns when Ohio State travels to Austin to face Texas on September 12, a rematch of their 2024-season College Football Playoff semifinal, which the Buckeyes won 28-14 on their way to that year's national championship. The game will be the sixth all-time meeting between the two programs, with Ohio State leading the series 3-2, and it marks the third consecutive season the teams have played each other.

Arch Manning's Second Act

Texas quarterback Arch Manning enters his second season as the Longhorns' starter after a first year that started shakier than the hype around him suggested it would. Manning had thrown only 95 career passes before taking over the starting job, and preseason expectations were high enough that some analysts were already debating his standing in the following year's NFL Draft. Texas opened 2025 ranked No. 1 in the AP preseason poll for the first time in program history, then stumbled to a 3-2 start that knocked the team out of the rankings entirely.

Manning's play improved significantly as the season progressed. Over his final eight games, Texas went 7-1, and Manning finished the year having thrown for 2,012 yards, 15 touchdowns and just two interceptions during that stretch, pushing his completion percentage up to 62.1 percent. He finished 17th nationally in ESPN's QBR metric for the full season. Entering 2026, Texas returns significantly more experience on offense than it had the year before, including a potential first-round tackle prospect in Trevor Goosby and two experienced transfer additions on the offensive line, giving Manning a much more complete supporting cast than as a first-year starter.

Jeremiah Smith and Ohio State's Path Back

Ohio State enters the season looking to reclaim the national championship after a 2025 season that ended short of expectations: the Buckeyes lost the Big Ten Championship Game to Indiana 13-10, then were eliminated by Miami 24-14 in the CFP quarterfinal. Indiana went on to beat Miami 27-21 in the national title game and finish a perfect 16-0, winning the program's first-ever championship. Much of Ohio State's path back centers on wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, the unanimous choice among college football evaluators as the sport's top returning receiver. Smith enters his junior season with 163 career receptions, 2,558 receiving yards and 27 touchdowns, needing to break three different Ohio State career receiving records this season. The Buckeyes are breaking in a new starting quarterback in Julian Sayin, but Smith's proven track record gives Ohio State a foundation few other title contenders can match heading into a rebuilding year at the position.

A Showcase Matchup

The September 12 game will be broadcast on ABC at 6:30 p.m. CT, with ESPN's College GameDay broadcasting live from the Texas campus for three hours beforehand, hosted by Rece Davis, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee, Nick Saban and Kirk Herbstreit. It'll be the second time in three seasons the two programs have squared off with major stakes attached, following their 2024-season CFP semifinal, giving both fan bases and national media a clear marker early in the season for gauging where both programs actually stand.

Other Storylines to Watch Entering the Season

Beyond the Ohio State-Texas showdown, the 2026 season carries several other significant storylines. Lane Kiffin's move to LSU after his tenure at Ole Miss adds a marquee coaching change to the SEC, with Kiffin inheriting a program hoping to finally break through after years of just missing on national title contention. The Big Ten enters the season considered the sport's deepest conference top-to-bottom, with defending national champion Indiana headlining the conversation, while the SEC's playoff picture remains crowded with contenders, led by a Georgia team many analysts consider the conference's clearest favorite.

Indiana returns as the reigning national champion under head coach Curt Cignetti after last season's historic 16-0 run, capped by a win over Miami in the title game. The ACC, meanwhile, continues to lean on programs like Miami, which reached the national championship game last season despite the loss, to sustain its position among the sport's power conferences. With the 12-team College Football Playoff format now in its second full season, more programs than ever enter the year with a realistic path to the postseason, adding stakes to nonconference games like Ohio State-Texas that might have carried less weight under the sport's old four-team format.

Why This Game Matters Early

Nonconference games rarely carry semifinal-level stakes this early in a season, but the history between these two programs, combined with Manning's and Smith's respective national profiles, gives this matchup outsized importance for the first month of the year. A Texas win would go a long way toward validating Manning's development as a passer heading into SEC play, while an Ohio State win would be an early signal that the Buckeyes are back on track after last season's quarterfinal exit. Either way, the result figures to shape the earliest version of the College Football Playoff picture heading into October.

Ohio State's Broader Schedule

Beyond the Texas showdown, Ohio State's full 2026 slate is one of the more demanding in the country. The Buckeyes' 12 regular-season opponents combined for a .629 conference winning percentage in 2025, and nine of those 12 opponents either made the playoff or played in a bowl game last season. Home dates against Michigan, Oregon, Illinois, Northwestern and Maryland highlight a schedule that also includes road trips to Iowa, Indiana, USC and Nebraska, giving Ohio State multiple chances to face other playoff contenders, including an October 17 trip to face the defending champion Hoosiers in a rematch of last season's Big Ten title game, before the postseason even begins.

Texas' Path Through the SEC

For Texas, the Ohio State game arrives just one week into a season that also includes the Lone Star Showdown against Texas A&M on November 27, a rivalry renewed in recent years after a long break between the two programs. Manning's development against a defense as experienced as Ohio State's will offer an early, high-profile test of how much he's grown since his rocky start to the 2025 season, when Texas opened the year ranked No. 1 for the first time in program history before stumbling to a 3-2 start. How he responds to that kind of pressure again, this time with a full season of starting experience behind him, will shape how the rest of the country views Texas' championship chances the rest of the way.

The Bigger Picture for the 2026 Season

With the 12-team College Football Playoff format now in its second full season, the margin for error across the sport has widened slightly, but marquee nonconference games like this one still carry real weight in shaping perception heading into conference play. A loss doesn't eliminate either team from playoff contention the way it might have under the sport's old four-team format, but it does affect seeding, potential first-round byes, and the overall narrative each program carries into the second half of the season. For two teams that met in the 2024-season national semifinal, that narrative weight makes this one of the most closely watched games of the entire opening month of the 2026 season, especially with Indiana now sitting atop the sport as the team both programs are chasing.