Looking for a Texas vs. Kentucky kickoff time this fall? You won’t find one. Neither athletic department lists the other anywhere on its 2026 football schedule, and no future football date between them has been announced. The next confirmed meeting in any sport is a men’s basketball game in Austin on Saturday, January 30, 2027.
Every date and score below was checked against both schools’ own schedule pages on July 29, 2026.
The Matchup at a Glance
| Question | Answer |
| 2026 football meeting | None. Not on either schedule |
| All-time football series | Texas leads 3-0. |
| Games played | September 22, 1951; November 23, 2024; October 18, 2025 |
| Last football result | Texas 16, Kentucky 13 in overtime, at Lexington |
| Last meeting in any sport | Kentucky 85, Texas 80, men’s basketball, January 21, 2026 |
| Next confirmed meeting | Men’s basketball, Saturday, January 30, 2027 |
| Venue | Moody Center, Austin |
| Tip-off time and TV | To be announced |
Key Takeaways
- There is no football game between these two in 2026. Both schedules are full, and neither includes the other.
- The football series is short and one-sided—three games, three wins for the Longhorns, none for the Wildcats.
- The live rivalry is on the hardwood. They have met in each of the last two basketball seasons and are booked again for January 2027.
- Kentucky will look different next time. Will Stein replaced Mark Stoops in December 2025.
Do They Play in Texas vs. Kentucky 2026?
Texas vs. Kentucky opens 2026 against Youngstown State and closes with Louisville, with nine SEC games in between, and Texas is not one of them. Sarkisian’s team plays nine league games of its own, starting with a trip to Tennessee. Neither list contains the other school.
That surprises people because both teams share a conference now. This league has 16 members, and each school plays nine of the other 15 every year. Six opponents rotate off. This year the rotation put Austin and Lexington on opposite sides of the wheel.
The 2026 Schedules, Side By Side
Neither team is dodging the other. They drew different drawings. Here is how the two conference slates compare and where they overlap.
| 2026 SEC opponents | Texas | Kentucky |
| Tennessee | Away | Away |
| Oklahoma | Dallas | Away |
| Florida | Home | Home |
| LSU | Away | Home |
| Missouri | Away | Away |
| Texas A&M | Away | Away |
| Not shared | Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas | Alabama, South Carolina, Vanderbilt |
Six common opponents is a lot. Want a fair read on which program had the better fall? Those six games are the closest thing to a controlled comparison without a head-to-head. Our college football coverage tracks the results week by week.
Every Texas vs. Kentucky Football Meeting, 1951 to Now
Three games in 75 years. That is the whole history, and the venue for the 1951 opener is not listed on either school’s current results archive.
| Date | Site | Result | Margin |
| September 22, 1951 | Site not confirmed | Texas 7, Kentucky 6 | 1 |
| November 23, 2024 | Austin | Texas 31, Kentucky 14 | 17 |
| October 18, 2025 | Lexington | Texas 16, Kentucky 13 (OT) | 3 |
Add the margins up, and the Longhorns have outscored Kentucky by 21 points across three games. Two of the three were one-score finishes. The 1951 opener came down to a single point, which is a strange thing to say about a series that also produced a 17-point blowout.
Seventy-three years separated the first meeting from the second. Texas joined the SEC in 2024, and the two have shared a league ever since. Before that, one lived in the Southwest Conference and then the Big 12, while the other sat in the SEC. There was never a scheduling reason for them to cross paths. At no point has this series belonged to the Wildcats. Not after a quarter, not after three quarters, not once in 1951.
Inside the 2025 Overtime Game
That most recent football meeting needed extra time. On October 18, 2025, Kentucky took Texas to overtime at Kroger Field and lost 16-13. It was the Wildcats’ closest game of a rough season.
Those two seasons went in opposite directions after that Saturday.
- Texas: finished 10-3, closing with wins over Texas A&M and a 41-27 Citrus Bowl result against Michigan on December 31, 2025.
- Kentucky: finished 4-8, including a 41-0 loss at Louisville to end the year.
Kentucky’s defense earned that overtime trip. Holding a Texas offense to 16 points at home is the kind of afternoon a program builds on, and it still ended in a loss. Kentucky scored more than 24 points only twice in SEC play all year. That run of results ended Mark Stoops’ 13-year tenure in Lexington.
Basketball is Where These Two Actually Meet
Forget football for a moment. Since Texas joined the SEC, the basketball programs have played every season, and that series is genuinely competitive.
The Longhorns won the first one 82-78 at Moody Center on February 15, 2025. Kentucky answered 85-80 at Rupp Arena on January 21, 2026, on SEC Network. Home team, both times.
That pattern is not a coincidence. A 2024 systematic review in the Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology screened 1,682 papers down to 39 for analysis. It reported that NBA home advantage has held at around 65% across 76 seasons from 1946 to 2022. Elite Basketball rewards the host, and the January 30, 2027, game is in Austin.
Both teams reached the 2026 NCAA Tournament. Austin’s run ended in the Sweet 16, a 79-77 loss to Purdue on March 26, 2026, after a 21-15 season. At 20-14, Kentucky fell to Iowa State in the second round four days earlier. You will find more of this in our sports events and analysis hub.
Will They Play Football Again?
Probably, and probably soon. No 2027 football pairings have been released, so nothing is confirmed past this season. But the math works in the fixture’s favor.
With nine conference games and 15 possible opponents, a school cycles through the league quickly. A team you skip one year tends to reappear within two or three. These two have already met in back-to-back seasons once, in 2024 and 2025, so the rotation is not keeping them apart on purpose.
Three things would need to happen for a meeting to land on a calendar:
- The SEC releases the 2027 opponent pairings, usually announced in the offseason.
- Both schools post the matching date on their published schedules.
- The league assigns a kickoff window and a network, which normally arrives six to twelve days out.
Different Sidelines Next Time
Whenever these programs meet again, at least one of them will look unfamiliar. On December 2, 2025, Kentucky hired Will Stein as head football coach. He is 36, a Louisville native, and spent 2023 through 2025 as Oregon’s offensive coordinator. His father played defensive end for the Wildcats in the 1980s.
Steve Sarkisian remains in Texas. In basketball, Sean Miller finished his first season in Austin with a Sweet 16 run, while Mark Pope is building at Kentucky. We keep athlete profiles and career journeys on the coaches and players driving both programs.
How We Checked This
Schedules move. Times get flexed, networks get assigned late, and non-conference games get bought out.
Everything here comes from the two athletic departments’ published schedule pages and their season results, cross-checked against ESPN listings, on July 29, 2026. If the SEC announces a future football pairing between these two, it will show up on those same pages first.
Next step: mark Saturday, January 30, 2027, for the basketball game in Austin, and check back once the SEC releases tip-off times and TV windows in the fall.
Conclusion
Although Texas vs. Kentucky will not be part of the 2026 college football schedule, the matchup remains one to watch as both programs continue competing in the SEC. Texas holds a perfect 3-0 lead in the all-time football series, including a hard-fought overtime victory in 2025, while Kentucky will look to rebuild under new head coach Will Stein. We cover this in more depth in Jon Sumrall.
Fans won’t see these teams meet on the gridiron this season, but they can look forward to their next confirmed clash in men’s basketball on January 30, 2027, with another football meeting likely once future SEC schedules are released. Until then, the series history remains firmly in Texas’ favor, and any future matchup will add another chapter to this growing conference rivalry.
FAQ
No. Neither school appears on the other’s 2026 schedule. Texas plays nine SEC games and three non-conference games, and Kentucky does the same, with no overlap between them.
Men’s basketball, Saturday, January 30, 2027, at Moody Center in Austin. Tip-off time and the TV window have not been set.
Texas leads 3-0, with wins in 1951, 2024, and 2025. Kentucky has never beaten the Longhorns on the football field.
Kentucky, in basketball. The Wildcats won 85-80 at Rupp Arena on January 21, 2026. The last football result was a 16-13 overtime win for Texas on October 18, 2025.
With 16 SEC members and a nine-game conference schedule, six league opponents rotate off every season. Both programs drew a 2026 slate without the other.
Not announced yet. Their January 2026 meeting aired on SEC Network, and league games from Austin usually land on SEC Network, ESPN, or ESPN2.
