Texas Football: Where ESPN ranked Longhorns in Big 12 for 2020 season

Where do some of the most well known national media outlets hold Texas football in relation to the rest of the Big 12 during the 2020 offseason?

Once spring camp concludes around the country, the offseason tends to turn to the point unofficially known as “list season”. The Texas football program always has the court of opinion either working heavily in their favor, or very much against them. There is rarely an in between for Texas in terms of preseason standings.

Finding the Texas Longhorns football program over the course of list season is not all that difficult. The Longhorns are one of those teams that everyone always has an opinion on, no matter what. They fall in line with other college football blue blood programs like the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, USC Trojans, Alabama Crimson Tide, Ohio State Buckeyes, Michigan Wolverines, etc.

However, one outlet got the jump on trying to project out how the teams in the FBS will stack up in 2020. ESPN released their initial Football Power Index rankings for all 130 FBS teams on Feb. 17. And 247Sports further prioritized ESPN’s FPI rankings into how it breaks down for the Big 12 during the 2020 offseason.

In those preseason rankings for the Big 12, Texas fell in line at No. 2. They were sandwiched between the Oklahoma school.. The Oklahoma Sooners top the Big 12 rankings and the Oklahoma State Cowboys were just behind the Longhorns at No. 3. And the Baylor Bears managed to drop all the way down to No. 6, after making the Big 12 Championship Game and the Sugar Bowl last season.

Here’s what 247Sports had to say about the placement of the Longhorns in these Big 12 preseason power rankings.

"Texas is back? The FPI thinks that 2020 could finally be the year the saying comes true. Expected to take a step forward in 2019, the Longhorns went 8-5 overall and 5-4 against Big 12 play, but were decimated by injuries — especially on the defense’s back end — and ended the season on a high note with Dec. 31’s 38-10 Valero Alama Bowl win over Utah. Entering Year 4, Texas head coach Tom Herman could use a breakout season and ESPN believes the Longhorns can get there as quarterback Sam Ehlinger returns, ranked seventh overall."

These rankings look to emphasis the coaching turnover under head coach Tom Herman and the play of to-be senior quarterback Sam Ehlinger this fall to determine if the Longhorns can make strides off a down 2019 campaign. Herman and Ehlinger will see a lot of production returning for this team, including over 60 percent on of the starters on both sides of the ball.

Ehlinger and Herman will be battling the likes of head coaches Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State) and Lincoln Riley (Oklahoma) to take home the Big 12 Title in 2020. There is likely to be another candidate that looms large that plays the role that Baylor did last season. Watch out for the TCU Horned Frogs and/or the Iowa State Cyclones to pull that off this year.