Texas Football: 3 reasons why the Longhorns can still win the Big 12

One of the more disappointing losses in recent memory for the Texas football program happened on Oct. 3, but their Big 12 hopes aren’t completely dashed.

There was a noted loss in confidence in the chances that Texas football has this year both to win the Big 12 Championship and represent the conference in the College Football Playoff. The Oct. 3 loss for Texas in their Big 12 home opener at the hands of head coach Gary Patterson and the TCU Horned Frogs really hurt for head coach Tom Herman.

The way that this loss to the Horned Frogs happened over the weekend made it even worse. The Longhorns weren’t able to get by this time by hanging on until the last second to try and win the game. That method might have worked on the road in their Big 12 opener back on Sep. 26 in a thrilling overtime comeback win over the Texas Tech Red Raiders by the final score of 63-56, but it didn’t pan out last weekend.

After falling short to TCU over the weekend, the Longhorns move to a record of 2-1 (1-1 Big 12) on the season. They were bounced from the top 20 in both polls, leaving the Oklahoma State Cowboys as the lone team in the Big 12 that is both undefeated and ranked in the top 25. But even Oklahoma State hasn’t really faced anyone of that much difficulty thus far.

While the door was wide open for Texas to take control of the Big 12 standings and take the role as the leader from the conference to represent in the College Football Playoff heading into the TCU game, those hopes faded fast. Texas was doomed on a late game fumble on the goal line by junior running back Keaontay Ingram that effectively sealed the win for TCU.

The Horned Frogs were able to take a safety and run out the rest of the clock after the Ingram fumble. That let TCU walk out of Austin with the 33-31 victory.

With that, the Big 12 and College Football Playoff hopes for Herman and the Longhorns faded dearly. But here’s a look into three reasons why the Big 12 Title hopes should still be alive following the loss to TCU.