Texas Football just behind Aggies, rank No. 14 in preseason Coaches Poll

The preseason Coaches Poll is now out and the Texas football program rings in at No. 14 in the country heading into the 2020 season.

The first official set of preseason rankings ahead of the 2020 college football season arrived on the morning of Aug. 6. And the Texas football program was an integral part of the preseason Coaches Poll once again this season. For the second straight year, Texas was included at least in the top 15 of a major preseason poll.

Last year, Texas came in ranked in the top 10 in both the AP and Coaches Poll. And that definitely didn’t turn out to be the right preseason projection for Texas in the end. They finished up with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12) last season after downing the Utah Utes in the Alamo Bowl.

Moreover, the greatest bit of normalcy to happen heading into a sports season that Longhorn fans have got in a while is seeing the projections in the preseason Coaches Poll for where their team could finish in 2020. While the Coaches Poll is notoriously inaccurate from the preseason compared to how the final AP Poll shakes out, it is still fun to speculate for the last month ahead of kickoff.

In this year’s preseason Coaches Poll, the Longhorns rang in at No. 14. Texas was the second-highest ranked team of the four from the Big 12 inside the top 25 of the preseason Coaches Poll. The rival Oklahoma Sooners were the highest ranked, at No. 6. The next highest ranked after Oklahoma and then Texas out of the Big 12 were the Oklahoma State Cowboys, at No. 16.

And the last team to round out the four from the Big 12 in this preseason top 25 was the Iowa State Cyclones, in the final spot at No. 25.

A notable nugget from the preseason Coaches Poll for the 2020 season was that the in-state rival Texas A&M Aggies were slotted one spot higher than the Longhorns, at No. 13.

However, the top five teams to round out the Coaches Poll were pretty suspected compared to most other early top 25 polls. In order, the top five was rounded out (in order from top-to-bottom) with the Clemson Tigers, Ohio State Buckeyes, Alabama Crimson Tide, Georgia Bulldogs, and defending National Champion LSU Tigers.

Texas was supposed to face LSU in Week 2 on the road in Baton Rouge, but the novel coronavirus pandemic obviously altered a lot of how schedules shaped up this fall.

The Big 12 is taking part in a nine game-plus one schedule. The Longhorns will face the other nine Big 12 schools, and then likely the UTEP Miners with their one non-conference game. It sounds like the Big 12 slate is now starting in late September too.

The preseason Coaches Poll shaped out mostly as anticipated. Texas looked to have the shape of a preseason top 15 team, given how much production they return on both sides of the ball. And you can view the entire preseason Coaches Poll, thanks to ESPN here.