Texas football back in top 10 in ESPN’s FPI post-Week 10

Watching how Texas football showed out in each of the last three games does inspire some confidence for how the season will round out.

The latest edition of ESPN’s Football Power Index following Week 10 of the college football season had the Texas football program moving back up the rankings. Fourth-year Texas head coach Tom Herman saw his team get a big win this weekend over second-year head coach Neal Brown and the West Virginia Mountaineers, by the final score of 17-13, at home on Nov. 7.

This triumph over West Virginia pushed the Longhorns winning streak to three games heading into a nicely timed bye week. Texas now holds a record of 5-2 (4-2 Big 12) after the four-point narrow win over the Mountaineers. That moved them up to the No. 21 slot in the AP Poll this week, and at No. 24 in the Coaches Poll.

The other two triumphs that helped the Longhorns build their current three-game winning streak came over the No. 14 ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys and Baylor Bears. This win over West Virginia, much like those over Oklahoma State and the Texas Tech Red Raiders, came down to the dying minutes of the fourth quarter.

Even the two losses for the Longhorns (at the hands of the Oklahoma Sooners and TCU Horned Frogs) came down to the last minutes of each game, or into multiple overtimes. That’s just the status quo for the Longhorns under Herman’s direction in Big 12 play so far this season.

There’s a lot of hope that the Longhorns can stay alive in the race to land a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game at this point in time. And the updated ESPN FPI this weekend gives a very optimistic outlook for the Longhorns chances the rest of the way.

The updated FPI moved Texas up two spots this weekend, breaking back into the top 10. They rank in the updated FPI ahead of teams like the BYU Cougars, Texas A&M Aggies, Indiana Hoosiers, Cincinnati Bearcats, and Oklahoma State Cowboys, among others. The lone Big 12 team that ranks ahead of Texas in this week’s FPI is Oklahoma (at No. 8).

Texas now has slightly over a 28 percent chance to win the Big 12, and around the same chances to win out. The FPI projects them to finish with eight wins this fall. That does seem realistic for the Longhorns (if you include the postseason) given where they sit now heading into the bye week.

Next up for the Longhorns out of the bye week is a matchup on the road in Lawrence on Nov. 21 against head coach Les Miles and the Kansas Jayhawks. Texas still has the likes of the Kansas State Wildcats and Iowa State Cyclones remaining on the schedule this fall.