After beating the third-ranked Texas A&M Aggies in the final week of the regular season, Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian made a passionate plea to the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, insisting that his team belongs in the postseason tournament.
He’s made the same rallying cry several times since, but can Texas really reach the 12-team competition?
With the use of PFSN’s College Football Playoff Meter and the College Football Playoff Predictor, let’s examine Texas’ chances of playing in the CFB Playoff.
What are Texas’ CFB Playoff Chances?
After beating the Aggies in the Lone Star Showdown, the PFSN FPM gave Texas a 2.5% chance of making the College Football Playoff. The Longhorns were currently ranked 16th in the CFP Selection Committee rankings, entering Week 14, ending their regular season campaign with a 9-3 overall record and 6-2 in conference play.
All eyes were on the penultimate rankings on Tuesday night to see how the committee viewed the Longhorns’ win over the Aggies, and ultimately, whether that would be enough to catapult the program into College Football Playoff contention with just the round of conference championship games still to play.
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The committee did look favorably on that result over a highly-ranked Power Four opponent. However, Texas only moved from 16th to 13th on Tuesday night, still sitting outside of the top 12 teams without even factoring in the two auto-bid teams that will come from outside of the top 25. Realistically, Texas needed to vault up to 10th to stand any chance at all.
And that’s now what they have, zero chance. According to the PFSN FPM, the Longhorns qualify for the College Football Playoff in 0% of the simulations. There simply isn’t a scenario that, without a gargantuan shift in how the committee views every team in the nation, Sarkisian’s team can launch itself into contention to play in the postseason tournament.
Texas is the highest-ranked three-loss team in the nation, but that third loss puts them at a major disadvantage in relation to the rest of the field. The Longhorns’ two losses to Ohio State and Georgia are quality games, but Texas’ loss to 4-8 Florida is a major stain on their CFB Playoff resume.
The loss to Ohio State opens up a can of worms about out-of-conference scheduling. If the Longhorns had simply scheduled an FCS outfit instead of the reigning college football champions, they’d be a 10-2 team with the argument made by some that those pure win numbers would have been enough to secure a postseason berth.
