Steve Sarkisian’s Texas Longhorns are fresh off a massive 35-10 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs last week. With the loss, the Longhorns fell 7-3 in the 2025 season, including a 4-2 record in the Southeastern Conference.
The Longhorns started the season as the No. 1 school in the nation, but they are now in danger of missing the playoffs. However, some, like ESPN’s Paul Finebaum, believe that Texas is still in the race.
Paul Finebaum Optimistic About Texas’s Playoff Potential Despite Georgia Loss
In ESPN’s “SportsCenter” on Sunday, Finebaum and Heather Denich broke down Texas’ playoff chances this season following the Georgia loss. Denich said that Texas still has another shot to impress the College Football Playoff committee against a top-five opponent when it meets the Texas A&M Aggies on Nov. 28.
Finebaum has always been a big supporter of Texas, and he also agreed to Denich’s notion about the Longhorns’ playoff potential.
“Right now, Texas looks dead, but they’re not because of that A&M game,” Finebaum said. “They will need a lot of things to happen for them. But I think right now, after you saw A&M play yesterday, you can start to think if somehow Texas can get home safely from Athens and get regenerated, they have a very good chance of winning that game.”
“It is going to be a frenzied scene. But right now, they just looked so bad last night that it’s hard to imagine them overcoming all of this, even though mathematically and according to Heather Denich, they can.”
Texas A&M has taken a major step forward this year and is one of the few teams still unbeaten at 10-0. The Aggies are coming off a 31-30 win over the South Carolina Gamecocks last weekend.
That scenario becomes possible if Texas ends up facing the same Texas A&M squad that managed only three points in the first half against South Carolina. However, not to mention that the Aggies came alive after halftime, wiping out a 27-point gap en route to a one-point comeback win.
While the Aggies ensured the biggest comeback in their history, the Longhorns couldn’t respond in a similar fashion against Georgia. It was a four-point game entering the final quarter before Georgia shut out Texas 21-0 in the fourth to seal the win as Sarkisian’s squad recorded just 23 rushing yards in the game.
Meanwhile, Finebaum mentioned on the “Matt Barrie Show” that even if Texas beats the Aggies, the severity of the Georgia loss will be hard for the selection committee to set aside. Besides that, the Longhorns suffered a 29-21 loss to the Florida Gators last month, before Billy Napier’s dismissal.
The Longhorns currently sit at No. 93 in the PFSN College Football OLi, and would be relying on chaos elsewhere and at the mercy of the playoff committee, as even a potential 9-3 finish may not be enough in such a crowded field. The CFP will reveal its third of six Top 25 rankings on Tuesday evening.
