Where Texas football ranks in the 2023 way-too-early top 25 rankings?

Following the blowout loss for the No. 3 TCU Horned Frogs at the hands of the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game on Jan. 9, Texas football fans can start seeing what the way-too-early top 25 rankings look like for 2023. Texas has a pretty good outlook under head coach Steve Sarkisian for the 2023 season after showing a lot of improvement on the field during the fall.

Sark and the Longhorns finished up the 2022 season with a record of 8-5 (6-3 Big 12) following a 27-20 loss in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 29 at the hands of the No. 12 ranked Washington Huskies. The loss to Washington in the Alamo Bowl dropped Texas to the No. 25 spot in the final AP Poll for the 2022 season.

Texas’ three-win improvement year-over-year under Sark is leading some to buy into the hype more than others around the college football media landscape for the 2023 season. Here’s a look at how some of the big media outlets slotted Sark and the Longhorns in the way-too-early rankings for the 2023 season.

Steve Sarkisian and Texas football cracking the top 20 in most way-too-early 2023 rankings

None of these are my personal opinion of where the Longhorns rank for the 2023 season. All are from other major media outlets.

ESPN: No. 16

One of the most hotly discussed way-too-early rankings for the upcoming season always comes from ESPN. This year’s version of ESPN’s way-too-early rankings for the 2023 season slots Texas at No. 16, which I believe might be too low given some of the information this article is presenting.

ESPN is showing that one of the anticipated key losses for Texas is senior offensive tackle Christian Jones, which no longer looks to be the case. It also doesn’t have the update yet of Texas landing a commitment out of the NCAA Transfer Portal from the former Arkansas Razorbacks redshirt junior safety Jalen Catalon.

The Athletic: Unranked (just outside top 25)

Probably one of the worst way-too-early top 25 rankings I saw in this endeavor came courtesy of Stewart Mandel of The Athletic. While I didn’t take much of an issue throughout his top 25, I did notice that he had the Texas A&M Aggies at No. 25 over more deserving teams such as the Longhorns and UCLA Bruins.

Yahoo Sports: No. 16

Texas returned to the No. 16 slot in Yahoo Sports way-too-early top 25 rankings for 2023. This ranking placed a lot of the weight on Sark’s shoulders in Year 3 as Texas’ head coach to be able to get the job done and lead the Longhorns to a Big 12 title.

Interestingly enough, Yahoo Sports had Texas sandwiched between two other Big 12 teams in their ranking. TCU rang in at No. 15 and the Kansas State Wildcats are at No. 17.

Pro Football Focus: No. 16

The trend continued of the Longhorns getting the No. 16 slot in way-too-early top 25 rankings for 2023 with Pro Football Focus. PFF pegs the fate of Sark and the Longhorns for the 2023 season on the ability of quarterback Quinn Ewers to finally make that leap in his third year in college.

CBS Sports: No. 17

The first publication I’ve found that doesn’t have the Longhorns either unranked or at No. 16 is CBS Sports. Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports mentioned that the 2023 season for Sark and the Longhorns will rest on the ability to beat the Oklahoma Sooners and contend for a Big 12 Championship.

In essence, there is nothing new to what Dodd is saying about what to expect on the Forty Acres for the upcoming college football season.

Athlon Sports: No. 14

This way-too-early top 25 ranking for the 2023 season from Athlon Sports actually dropped a few days before Georgia topped TCU in the national title game. Athlon Sports seemed pretty high on Texas for the 2023 season, largely thanks to the improvement of the defense and the plethora of returning starters on both sides of the ball.

To sum this up, one major caveat to the way-too-early top 25 rankings in this day and age of college football is that the transfer portal can shake so many things up between now and the summer. Depending on what happens in the portal in the next few months, we could see a complete shake-up in how the top 25 polls are thought of for the 2023 campaign.