Texas Football: Where NCAA ranked Horns in early top 25 2020 poll

The NCAA’s website officially released their latest early top 25 rankings, including Texas football, for the 2020 regular season.

It is rare that the Texas football program and its fan base gets a peak into how the NCAA views their rankings and polls for the season that is to come this early in the offseason. But there is much less going on in the sports news cycle in general at the moment (outside of NFL free agency) thanks to the precautions surrounding the outbreak of novel coronavirus.

The Texas Longhorns football program rounded out their 2019 season with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12) and with a win in the Alamo Bowl on New Year’s Eve over the No. 11 ranked Utah Utes by the final score of 38-10. Given that the Longhorns held a top 10 preseason ranking in both major polls entering their 2019 campaign, the eight-win season wasn’t a success by any means.

However, since Texas finished their 2019 campaign on a high-note and actually brings back a lot of talent and experienced production entering the 2020 regular season, there is more hype on the table this offseason. Texas

In the latest edition of the preseason rankings from the NCAA itself, the Longhorns held a pretty favorable spot compared with how they finished up last season. This set of top 25 rankings for the 2020 college football season came from NCAA.com on March 20.

There were four teams from the Big 12 ranked in the top 25 for the 2020 season in this preseason poll. The four included in the early top 25 from NCAA.com were the Oklahoma Sooners (No. 7), Oklahoma State Cowboys (No. 12), Texas (No. 14), and the Iowa State Cyclones (No. 23).

Most of the preseason polls do have four or five teams from the Big 12 in their early top 25 rankings.

Teams that are on the borderline to be ranked in preseason top 25 polls out of the Big 12 includes the Baylor Bears (who made it to the Sugar Bowl last year) and the TCU Horned Frogs. But Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, and Iowa State tend to be the four teams that are favorited to fill the top spots in the Big 12 standings in the season that is to come.

Here’s what this set of rankings from NCAA.com had to say about their placing of the Longhorns.

"The Longhorns started in the top 10 and lost by only 7 to LSU but then fell to 6-5. Reason for optimism? the ‘Horns crushed Texas Tech and then No. 11 Utah in the Alamo Bowl by 28 to end the season on a positive note. And QB Sam Ehlinger will be back. However, a euphoric bowl win in the 2018 season didn’t exactly mean good things for 2019."

The top five in this poll is rounded out by the Clemson Tigers, Ohio State Buckeyes, Alabama Crimson Tide, defending National Champion LSU Tigers, and Georgia Bulldogs (in that order from top-to-bottom). Other significant teams worth mentioning in this top 25 included the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (No. 11), Texas A&M Aggies (No. 13), and Utah (No. 22).

Head coach Tom Herman has a good team coming back for the 2020 season and a very new look coaching staff around him. Ehlinger is going to spearhead the offense, and junior defensive backs Caden Sterns and B.J. Foster will be leading the defense this fall.