Texas Football: Should Longhorns be in top 25 to close out 2019?

It seems like the Texas football program did more than enough in their final two games of the season to deserve some merit to get into the last AP Poll.

There’s only a few key remaining events before the 2019 college football season is officially over with. The FCS National Championship Game between the James Madison Dukes and North Dakota State Bison and the College Football Playoff National Championship Game between LSU and Clemson occur with three more bowl games at the FBS level. And blue bloods like the Texas football program, among others, still need to figure out where they rank at season’s end.

The final AP Poll, which will come out after the national title winner is decided between LSU and Clemson, will dictate whether the Texas Longhorns football program will round out the 2019 campaign in the top 25. Texas started out the 2019 season ranked in the top 10 in both the AP Poll and Coaches Poll. For most of the season since, the Longhorns were unranked.

Where it really all started to go downhill for Texas was in the loss to the Oklahoma Sooners in the Red River Rivalry Game. The Longhorns did play the Sooners to just a one possession loss, but wound up racking up a ton of injuries that continued to negatively impact the team for the rest of the regular season.

In the five games following the loss to Oklahoma, Texas wound up losing three and nearly was beat by both Kansas schools. That last-second field goal it took to beat head coach Les Miles and the Kansas Jayhawks, by the final score of 50-48, was pretty embarrassing. Texas also lost to the Iowa State Cyclones, TCU Horned Frogs, and Baylor Bears in that span of five games.

The win over the Kansas State Wildcats was one of the Longhorns most impressive throughout the regular season, but came by a narrow three-point margin. That came could’ve swung either way, as special teams played a big role in the outcome.

The two other biggest wins for the Longhorns this season obviously came in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 31 over the Utah Utes by the final score of 38-10. Big 12 wins over Kansas State and the Oklahoma State Cowboys were also big for the Longhorns.

However, Texas now heads into the offseason with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12). Utah was ranked No. 11 heading into the Alamo Bowl, so there’s a good chance that an eight-win Texas team could sneak back into the top 25 in the final AP Poll.

What could help the Longhorns case in the last AP Poll is the solid play of junior star quarterback Sam Ehlinger and head Texas football coach Tom Herman righting the ship down the stretch. Texas ended on a clear high-note by beating Utah and the Texas Tech Red Raiders in their final two games by a combined margin of 53 points.

Texas has not been ranked since Nov. 16, when they lost to Iowa State on the road. Putting together such an emphatic win over a team that was recently a College Football Playoff contender like Utah could put the Longhorns back in a position to be ranked to close out the 2019 season.