:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71349525/usa_today_19018118.0.jpg "Alabama-Texas series: When Crimson Tide, Longhorns will play each other again in college football")
The No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide narrowly avoided an upset at the hands of the Texas Longhorns on Saturday, escaping Austin with a 20-19 victory. The game turned out to be way more competitive than what experts predicted as the Horns hung with the Tide throughout the afternoon. This will become a regular conference matchup when Texas joins the SEC in 2025, but fans will get to see it again even sooner than that.
The next time Alabama will play Texas is next year, where the Crimson Tide will welcome the Longhorns to Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, AL, on September 9, 2023. This is part of a home-and-home agreement made between the two schools prior to the announcement of Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC. This will mark the 10th all-time matchup between the two blue bloods and the first one to take place in Tuscaloosa since their inaugural encounter in 1902.
As for the the future of this series once Texas joins the SEC, the conference is still determining what the schedule format will be with 16 teams. So far, it is believed they will go with a “pod” format where every team would get three permanent opponents and a rotation of six other schools to create a nine-game conference schedule. For Texas, their permanent opponents will most likely be Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and Arkansas, making Alabama a team they'd see every other season.