Texas Football: An updated look at the Horns’ playoff odds

We are nearly a week removed from Texas football‘s heartbreaking 34-30 loss at the Cotton Bowl. As the dust settles, clearer heads prevail, and we look up to see that the Longhorns enter their Week 7 bye with all of their preseason goals in front of them.

The 5-1 start by Texas is its best since its 2009 National Runner-Up season. It is important to take a minute to compartmentalize this after the loss last Saturday.

The Longhorns, despite what anguish you may feel, hold their best record through six games in 14 years. The sky is not falling; this is still a very good football team. Texas is ranked ninth in the AP Poll and is a top-five team by most power ranking metrics.

The bye week, coming at the mid-point of the regular season offers a natural reset to what has happened and what is still ahead of this team.

Before I get into this breakdown, I want to clarify one thing: Technically, Texas does not control its destiny regarding its Big 12 Championship and College Football Playoff hopes. This is something I will get into and is certainly something I believe will work itself out. That said, I have seen a lot of chatter around Twitter saying Texas controls its destiny, which unfortunately is not the case.

A quick look around the Big 12 and how Texas football stacks up

Oklahoma sits alone atop the conference standings at 3-0. However, West Virginia is alone in second at 2-0. The Mountaineers are the sole reason Texas does not control its destiny in the Big 12.

Texas does not play West Virginia this year. If the Mountaineers run the table and finish 9-0 in conference play, and the Sooners’ only conference loss comes to WVU, a 9-0 West Virginia would play an 8-1 Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship, regardless if Texas wins out.

If the Sooners finish 9-0 and West Virginia’s only loss comes to Oklahoma, the 8-1 Mountaineers and 8-1 Longhorns would go through a bevy of tiebreakers to see who gets to go to Arlington to play Oklahoma.

While it is important to be aware of West Virginia and the current power they hold, I still am not sold on that football team. They are a tough, gritty bunch with a ‘punch you in the mouth’ mindset, but I do not believe they will win eight or nine Big 12 games. According to KFord Ratings, the Mountaineers have less than a one percent chance to finish 9-0 in-conference and a seven percent chance to finish 8-1, with their most likely conference record being 6-3.

Elsewhere around the Big 12, Kansas, Iowa State, and Texas Tech are tied with Texas at 2-1 in the conference standings. A healthy Kansas team can win seven Big 12 games, but the Horns already hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Texas gets its shot at Iowa State in Week 12 and Texas Tech in Week 13 and will have nobody to blame but themselves if these teams make it to Arlington over them.

Kansas State (currently 1-1 ) is a team I believe could find some legs as the season progresses. They travel to Austin in Week 10 in a game that could be very consequential for Big 12 Championship game hopes.

The Big 12 is always very unpredictable, and this year is no different. Although Texas needs some help from West Virginia, they are still far and away the most likely team to meet Oklahoma in Arlington.

College Football Playoff look ahead

All we hear is, “There is no way the committee will keep out a one-loss Texas team!” While I agree the College Football Playoff committee will undoubtedly keep the massive national burnt orange brand in mind, there is one scenario where the results of the Horns’ last six/seven games could be rendered obsolete nationally.

The doomsday scenario: 13-0 Georgia (SEC Champion), 13-0 Big Ten Champion (Michigan, Ohio State, or Penn State), 13-0 Pac-12 Champion (Oregon, USC, or Washington), 13-0 Florida State (ACC Champion).

If undefeated, all of the above teams would get in over Texas. However, finishing the season with four undefeated teams is very unlikely. Since the inception of the College Football Playoff in 2014, there has never been a year where four undefeated teams made the Playoff.

This is a crucial note for Texas. If the Longhorns finish the season 12-1, I believe their resume would be better than any other one-loss team in the country. At that point, the Horns would have a win over No. 3 Alabama in Tuscaloosa (arguably the best win of the season), a win over a (likely) top-ten Oklahoma team, and wins over Kansas and Kansas State, who I believe will finish the season in the top-25. Their win over Wyoming could also be a sneaky feather in their cap, as the Cowboys are currently the highest-ranked Group of Five team.

As I noted earlier, the committee has TV rating incentives for bringing a brand like Texas into the College Football Playoff (if the Horns finish 12-1, they have 100% earned their spot).

I am not going to go through each contender’s schedule and predict where the loss(es) come, but just a broad overview:

• The Big Ten East (Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State) will somewhat cannibalize each other during their round-robin. Whoever survives and makes (wins) the Big Ten Championship will be in, but the other two, even at 11-1, will not have better resumes than Texas.
• The Pac-12 has been known to cannibalize itself. A 6-0 USC is currently ranked one spot behind Texas in the AP Poll because the world knows this is a flawed team. Oregon, USC, and Washington play each other (ORE/WASH this weekend), and teams like Oregon State, UCLA, Utah, and Washington State are all right in the Pac-12 mix. If a team comes out of this gauntlet 13-0, they will be ranked ahead of Texas. However, a 12-1 Pac-12 Champ is still behind the Horns.
• Florida State’s best wins (Clemson, LSU) look worse and worse by the week. That said, they will likely be favored by double-digits in their remaining seven regular games (sigh, ACC). The Seminoles are flawed and were tested by a poor BC team. I expect them to slip up at some point, and their 12-1 resume wouldn’t hold a hat to Texas’.
• If a 12-0 Georgia loses to an 11-1 Alabama in the SEC Championship, things could get a little hairy. A 12-1 SEC Champion Alabama is 100 percent in the CFP, but at that point, a 12-1 Big 12 Champion Texas is right next to them. We have talked about Georigia’s poor schedule all season. While that benefits them in some ways, it makes their margins razor-thin. *whispers* if 12-0 Georgia loses in the SEC Championship, they won’t make the Playoff.

FWIW, ESPN’s Allstate College Football Playoff Predictor currently gives Texas football the fifth-best odds to make the College Football Playoff (32 percent). If they win out, that number jumps to 98 percent.