The 4-time defending NCAA Men’s Swimming & Diving Champion Texas Longhorns have announced their 2018-2019 schedule, which will kick off on September 28th with the intrasquad Orange & White meet.
Their first intercollegiate competition will be a two-day tri with Indiana and Florida on October 19th, and 20th. This marks the 4th-straight season that the three teams have participated in the early-season tri meet, with this year being Texas’ turn to host at the Jamail Texas Swimming Center – which will also host both the men’s and women’s NCAA Championships in March.
It will be a very light fall semester for the Longhorn swimmers – they’ll next race a dual meet against long-time rivals Texas A&M in Austin and then face another SEC opponent Tennessee in Knoxville before hosting the Hall of Fame Invitational from November 28th-December 1st. For now, that meet is scheduled to include Texas, USC, Arizona, Wisconsin, Harvard, and the men’s program from Stanford. There’s a few good storylines in there, including:
- Jake Sannem transferred from USC to Texas for the 2018-2019 season.
- It will be the first big invitational meet for Wisconsin under their new head coach Yuri Suguiyama, who came from Cal. Wisconsin at present has a very different level of talent than Cal did, so we’ll see how Suguiyama adjusts his taper plans.
- Harvard’s top swimmer Dean Farris spent most of the summer training with Texas.
Texas’ spring semester gets a little busier, and has a heavy SEC tint, as they’ll travel to race Auburn (with new head coach Gary Taylor) and Georgia in mid-January. After racing at the long course TYR Pro Swim Series at Austin meet, they then wrap the regular season with a two-day dual at home against NC State and Arizona.
Update: Texas lists the Austin PSS on their schedule, which has traditionally been the January meet of the series, but this year that meet will go to Knoxville instead.
The Big 12 Championships will be hosted in Austin for the 7th-straight season, and the Texas men will again be favored to win their 23rd-straight Big 12 conference championship (which, is all of them) and 40th-straight conference championship overall (dating back to the Southwest Conference, which they won every year from 1980 through 1996).
The best in the country will then return to Austin for the NCAA Championships, which will be held from March 27th-30th.
Texas has no dual meets this year against Big 12 foes TCU or West Virginia; also dropping off the schedule is Arizona State, who Texas swam last year as part of their trip to the desert to race Arizona.
Texas went 4-5 in dual/tri meets last year, losing to Indiana (by 99), Florida (by 87, Texas A&M, NC State (by 60), and Arizona State, while beating TCU, Arizona, Auburn, and North Carolina.
Team’s that scored at NCAAs last year that Texas will race in the regular season this year:
- #3 Indiana
- #4 NC State
- #5 Florida
- #6 USC
- #7 Stanford
- #10 Georgia
- #11 Tennessee
- #12 Auburn
- #14 Texas A&M
- #16 Arizona (twice)
- #18 Harvard
The Longhorns graduated a big class, that includes Jonathan Roberts, Brett Ringgold, and 12-time NCAA Champion Joseph Schooling, but also bring in the top-ranked recruiting class in the country. A full preview of the Texas men’s team this season will be out later this week.
#5peat
Texas Swimming and Diving are the bell weather program of college swimming. This program is beyond accolades. Congratulations to Coach Reese, all of his coaches, support staff, former and present athletes! Just amazing.
Eddie is a great coach as well as a great recruiter as well as a great strategist. He recruits a top notch class every year, he hosts his own invite in a super nice pool for swimmers to get their cuts, they belong to the weakest conference and they are not concerned with winning any dual meets. It’s the perfect formula for putting a championship team together. I would be very worried if Texas didn’t win and didn’t dominate the national title every year.
If the first Pro Swim stop according to USA Swimming State of Sport press release is in Knoxville how is Texas also planning on hosting it?
That’s a very good question, and one we’ve asked. Will report back when we get an answer.
Maybe it is in Knoxville which could be why Texas has an away meet there in November.
It actually specifically says “in January.”
Awaiting full details, but the early response from USA Swimming is that Texas’ schedule is wrong, and the series will start in Knoxville.
They have a meet there Nov. 9th. Perhaps, providing early exposure to the pool so maybe looking to go back and swim fast in January. Just a thought.
#Texa5Longhorn5
Wow, Texas Invitational renamed to Hall of Fame Invitational? Does not sound right.
The name for years has been the Texas Swimming & Diving Hall of Fame Invitational, though it’s referred to by lots of colloquial names. It’s named as such because it includes the inductions into the Texas (the state, not the school) Swimming & Diving Hall of Fame that is house as the Jamail Swim Center.
I can see that it’s been named as such as least as far back as 2009.
So will everyone freak out when Texas swims slowly at these meets? Past results say yes
This is not a competition schedule. It’s s practice schedule. Texas has no intention in winning any of these meets. If Texas wins a dual meet, the other team must be really bad. Texas always shows up come March escpecially when it’s a home meet for them.
I know you were trying to make fun of Texas fans here with this post, so I am not really replying to you. Here is what I know: Texas wants to win EVERY dual meet, but they will not change their practice plan for NCAAs just so they can win a dual. Texas care very much about Texas Invitational in December and tries to make as many sure NCAA cuts as possible, Swimmers that do not make cuts, or not sure they made cuts, will taper for Big 12s too. The rest of sure qualifiers will not. So, you can say, Texas cares about NCAA cuts, not duals, really. Only one meet counts for the old man.
again, Texas swimming was still very good obviously. But they are not as dominant as they used to be in the pool. Texas Diving however is taking care the business.
I’m talking based of points scored at NCAA
Texas was definitely off last year. Most of the time they are contesting every relay. Last years relays for Texas were awful by Texas standards. 3-4-4-5-9th place finishes. Diving saved the day. Eddie was smart enough to recognize the swimming weakness and brought in some stud divers.
Alberio said the same thing about his dual meets on the USA swim pod he was just on. Basically said he loves dual meets but the women’s team was 1-7 in Duals last year, Commerford barely won any races and he wouldn’t sacrifice anything for the end goals, IE March.
To be fair, they were not as Texas impressive at last year’s NCAA meet. In facts, when was the last time Texas got outscored in swimming at NCAA meet? Cal and NC State were most impressive in the water. Texas and IU were the better complete swimming AND diving teams.
Last year, it was rightfully so. Aside from a few standouts, most of the Texas team swam poorly by their own standards at NCAAs. They just had overwhelming talent, and so it was enough to win anyway.
So depends on whether by ‘freak out’ you mean ‘freak out about individual competitors not being ready for NCAAs’ or ‘freak out about the team not winning NCAAs’.
I think Texas has a 2 day Tri with N.C. state and Arizona not two separate duels with Arizona.
The other time they see Arizona is at the Hall of Fame Invitational. That + dual = 2.