Texas does not get the news it hoped for from the SEC ahead of Texas A&M grudge match

If the Texas Longhorns want any shot of making the College Football Playoff, it starts by handing the Texas A&M Aggies their first loss of the season. While Texas has not lost a game at home this season, they will have to play at least the first half of it without one of their key contributors over on defense. Linebacker Ty'Anthony Smith was ejected from the Arkansas game on a questionable targeting call.

Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian was hoping the SEC league office would see it his way and allow Smith to play in the first half of Texas' biggest game of the season. The SEC saw differently. It upheld its ruling on the targeting call. Smith will be out for the first half. While Sarkisian and Texas did not get the boost they were hoping for from the SEC, they have a real shot at knocking off Texas A&M.

Sarkisian spoke to the media on Monday about the SEC denying his appeal on Smith's targeting call.

"I thought it was a good, clean football hit. Those are really hard to officiate, especially in the moment. And that's a difficult one, because I thought Ty'Anthony used really good fundamentals and techniques. He kept the crown of his helmet out of it. He wrapped, he didn't launch himself into the receiver. We did appeal it, and our appeal was denied. And so he'll be down in the first half this week."

For those who have not seen it, here is the play in question where Smith was ejected for targeting.

The tricky part in Smith's targeting call on his hit of an Arkansas wide receiver is if it occurred in the first half of that rivalry game, he would have been able to play and start the entirety of Lone Star. However, since it occurred in the second half, Smith was ruled out for the rest of the game and will now miss the first half of the game in question vs. A&M. Texas was never going to win this appeal...

Let's now discuss what all is at stake when it comes to Texas hosting Texas A&M on Black Friday.

Texas will be without LB Ty'Anthony Smith for first half vs. Texas A&M

Entering Week 14, Texas has an 8-3 record and is 5-2 in SEC play. According to ESPN's FPI, Texas only has a 4.3-percent chance to make the playoff. The Longhorns would obviously have to beat Texas A&M, and get some help along the way. That would give them three ranked wins over Oklahoma, Vanderbilt and Texas A&M. Its three losses were all on the road at Ohio State, Florida and Georgia.

While Texas has no shot of getting to Atlanta, owning the head-to-head over Texas A&M would be huge in the Longhorns' attempt to get above the cut line, the No. 10 seed in all likelihood... No. 17 Texas is being given a 51.5-percent chance to win the Lone Star Showdown. The question now is can they move up 10 spots over the course of two weeks, with Texas only playing one game in that time.

There are a handful of teams who Texas is not catching. Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M, Georgia and Oregon are all effectively playoff locks. Texas Tech and Notre Dame are certainly trending that way. Unless Oregon loses to Washington or Notre Dame falls to Stanford, they are both getting in. Ole Miss gets in with another win, as would Oklahoma and Alabama. Could any of them stumble, though?

Oklahoma and Alabama are out with losses to LSU and Auburn. Ole Miss would be around the cut line with a loss to Mississippi State. Texas should be rooting for any of those to happen. They should also be rooting hard against teams like BYU, Utah, Miami, Vanderbilt and Michigan. Georgia Tech and USC are no longer viable playoff threats. Texas has an outside shot at the No. 10 seed, but not a good one.

Overall, having Smith available for the full game would have made things infinitely more easy for the Longhorns to get past the Aggies. While they still very well could with only having him available for the second half, Texas needs too many things to go its way to realistically be above the cut line. That being said, one should expect for Texas to be ranked inside of the top-16 heading into Friday night.

Ultimately, Texas needed to beat one of three teams of significance on the road at the start of the year in Ohio State, Florida and Georgia to seriously make the playoff, and the Longhorns could not get any of them. Oklahoma and Texas A&M are markedly better than what we all thought they were coming in, as is Vanderbilt. Three signature wins and two quality losses are good, but not to Florida.

Even with a win over A&M, Texas may have sealed its playoff fate by not winning the one in Gainesville.