Texas football bowl predictions: Where will Longhorns play after regular season?

No. 7 Texas football wrapped up its last regular season in the Big 12 on Black Friday (Nov. 24) with a massive 57-7 win at home at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin over the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Texas looked absolutely dominant during Thanksgiving week with a 50-point win over Texas Tech to finish the regular season with 11 wins (11-1, 8-1 Big 12).

Head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns locked up a spot in the Big 12 Championship and are very much alive in the College Football Playoff conversation heading into conference championship week. But the Longhorns still need to win the Big 12 title game against the No. 19 Oklahoma State Cowboys next weekend and get some help around the Power Five to get in the CFP.

Texas will battle Oklahoma State (9-3, 7-2 Big 12) and longtime head coach Mike Gundy in the Big 12 Championship Game in the last stop on the revenge tour on Dec. 2 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX, at 11 a.m. CT.

Here’s a look at where the Longhorns are projected to end up in the postseason following the win over Texas Tech in the regular season finale on Nov. 24.

Texas football projected to get a New Year’s Six Bowl at the very least this postseason in post-Week 13 predictions

Similar to last week, the Longhorns are projected by roughly half of the major media outlets to play in the College Football Playoff. And the other half project Texas to get a spot in a New Year’s Six Bowl game as an at-large bid.

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach projects Texas as the four-seed against the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs in the CFP Semifinal game at the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Meanwhile, ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura projects Texas to face the Penn State Nittany Lions in the Cotton Bowl.

CBS Sports projects Texas to face the Tulane Green Wave as an at-large bid in the Fiesta Bowl.

And 247Sports projects Texas to face the Mizzou Tigers in the Cotton Bowl.

The bowl projections for the Longhorns are almost identical to what they were last week, thanks to all the teams in the top eight of the College Football Playoff rankings winning their games in rivalry week. Texas needs help from a few other teams around the Power Five in conference championship week to make the CFP.

Namely, Texas needs the Louisville Cardinals to beat the Florida State Seminoles in the ACC Championship Game on Dec. 2 to feel good about its chances of making the Playoff. Texas obviously also needs a win over Oklahoma State in the Big 12 Championship Game for any of this Playoff talk to truly matter.