Chris Del Conte explains why Texas canceled the Arizona State series

ATHENS, GEORGIA - NOVEMBER 15: Athletic director Chris Del Conte looks on before the game between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Texas Longhorns at Sanford Stadium on November 15, 2025 in Athens, Georgia.

(Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images) | Getty Images In an appearance on the On Second Thought podcast released on Thursday, Texas Longhorns athletics director Chris Del Conte explained the decision earlier this week to cancel the non-conference series scheduled against the Arizona State Sun Devils for the 2032 and 2033 series. “It was not even supposed to be scheduled,” Del Conte said .

According to the May 2019 release from the Sun Devils , the two programs had discussed the possibility of a series for a long time, but the contract was only signed because Texas had an opening in its 2021 schedule and Del Conte didn’t want to play an FCS opponent, in standing with university tradition.

So the agreement came about because Arizona State released its game against Louisiana for Texas to fill its opening, which Del Conte mistakenly misremembered as Louisiana-Monroe, likely because the Longhorns played the Warhawks in 2022 and 2024. “We agreed, okay, we’ll play you down the road. Let us play Monroe right now, knowing that we’re never gonna play that game.

So we actually canceled that game six, seven months ago. It just hit the newspaper now, but it was a mutually agreed upon thing,” Del Conte said. “This past year, we started, hey, man, that game doesn’t make sense for either one of us, so we had a discussion. It was a mutually agreed upon.

We’re not going to play that game so far out, and from my perspective, I never intended playing the game the first time anyway.” Del Conted noted that TCU is still playing football games he scheduled before making the move from Fort Worth to Austin more than eight years ago, but said that the fluidity surrounding college football, in particular in regards to possible continued expansion of the playoff, has made him more reticent to contract non-conference games as far out as he used to — beyond UTSA in 2030 and UTEP in 2031, Texas doesn’t currently have any games scheduled past the 2028 season.

“What does our new ecosystem look like? So instead of being like it used to be, let me schedule teams 10 years out, let’s be a little bit more nimble right now because of the unknown,” Del Conte said. Twice asked directly whether the Longhorns will still play the home-and-home series against the Fighting Irish in 2028 and 2029, Del Conte was evasive.

“Everything is fluid.” The Longhorns athletics director said he never planned on playing the series. The Longhorns athletics director said he never planned on playing the series.