Three-loss Texas is alive, and so is the College Football Playoff debate of SEC dreams

The Athletic has live coverage of Ohio State vs. Michigan from college football rivalry week.

AUSTIN, Texas — Arch Manning found a hole, found space, found the end zone. And with the dagger touchdown, Texas found itself back in the College Football Playoff conversation, even if everyone outside the southeastern United States doesn’t want to hear it.

Apologies to the College Football Playoff committee, which in almost every one of its 13 seasons has actually had a pretty easy job in the end. That won’t be the case this year, as Texas’ 27-17 win against Texas A&M on Friday night launched the Longhorns back into the picture, as much the committee has tried to avoid it.

The bottom line is Texas does have a good case, and the SEC’s offseason complaining about the proper value of schedule strength is about to come into focus.

“It would be a disservice to our sport if this team is not a playoff team when we scheduled that nonconference game,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said on the field after the game, referring to Texas’ Week 1 loss to Ohio State.

In his postgame news conference, Sarkisian came ready with stats. This Texas team was the first since 2019 national champion LSU to beat three teams ranked in the top 10 at the time (Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M). The Longhorns have the No. 5 strength of schedule according to one metric. Texas has played the teams currently ranked No. 1, 3 and 4 (going 1-2 against them), and it played Ohio State closer than anyone, a season-opening 14-7 road loss in which the Longhorns outgained the Buckeyes by 133 yards.

“It’s the message, what do we want to send to the head coaches and the athletic directors around the country?” he said. “Do you want us not to schedule Ohio State? Because if we’re a 10-2 team right now, this isn’t a discussion. We’re in the Playoff. But we were willing to go up there and play that game.

“So now, when you play five top-10 ranked teams in the regular season, and you go 3-2 and you schedule an Ohio State out of conference play, I surely don’t think we want to punish us to do that, because what are we all going to do? We’re all going to get out of those games, just like a lot of other teams in the country have done, and they’ve got nice, pretty records right now, but they weren’t willing to go play these games out of conference.”

He’s got a point. Just look at Notre Dame, which is 9-2 and enters the weekend ranked No. 9, with its best win coming against a three-loss USC team. The Irish lost to the Texas A&M team that the Longhorns just beat.

Look at Vanderbilt, ranked No. 14 and two spots ahead of Texas, despite Texas’ win over the Commodores. Look at Michigan, with no ranked wins, sitting at No. 15, one spot ahead of Texas, despite a loss to the Oklahoma team that Texas beat.

Look at No. 13 Utah, which lost in lopsided fashion to Big 12 front-runner Texas Tech and may end the season with no top-20 wins following Arizona State’s loss Friday night.

It made zero sense for the committee to jump Michigan over Texas like it did last week after the Wolverines’ 45-20 win against seven-loss Maryland, while Texas had a similarly comfortable win over nine-loss Arkansas. But if Michigan hadn’t leapt Texas, the committee would’ve had to explain the Vanderbilt/Texas conversation the same way it has tried to avoid the Notre Dame/Miami conversation.

But Texas has forced the committee’s hand. There is no world where Vanderbilt can stay ahead of Texas now, even if the Commodores beat Tennessee.

“If you don’t think we’re one of the 12 best teams in the country, I don’t know what to tell you,” quarterback Arch Manning said afterward.

Texas is only where it is because it has three losses. It has three losses because it played at No. 1 Ohio State, and played the Buckeyes close. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey will pound the table over the next week making that point, and his case is a fair one.

But Texas also has three losses because the Longhorns lost to a Florida team that is now 3-8. The 29-21 defeat was a bad loss at the time, and it has only gotten worse with age.

“This whole idea of, ‘Well, you lost to Florida,’ well, the team that played for the national championship last year lost to Northern Illinois at home,” Sarkisian said, referring to Notre Dame. “You’re going to punish us but you want to punish them? They were good enough to go play for a national title.”

That argument is not as strong as the others. That Notre Dame team didn’t lose any more games. If Texas was 11-1 with a Florida loss, it would be in the field. If Texas was 10-2 without the Florida loss, it would be comfortably in the field.

The argument the SEC expected to make this fall about strength of schedule hasn’t come into play yet because the league is set to easily get four teams in the field. A year ago, it only got three, when three-loss Alabama was left out in favor of SMU, which had one regular-season loss. So in the offseason, the SEC shouted from the rooftops and brought pamphlets to its spring meetings to argue for altered CFP metrics and a focus on strength of schedule.

It worked. In August, the CFP announced it would add a strength of record metric and tweak its strength of schedule metric, with the goal of rewarding more good wins and punishing less the losses against good teams (though the committee did not make its numbers public).

Instead, this CFP committee has pretty clearly leaned more on the value of losses than anything else. The rankings entering Saturday featured all the undefeated teams, followed by all the one-loss teams (except BYU), then most of the two-loss teams, then the three-loss teams, with Texas atop that last group. Part of the committee’s public case for Notre Dame ahead of Miami was the quality of Notre Dame’s losses, even the one against Miami.

But Texas has too many good wins now to avoid that conversation. Now, its number of games against top competition is going to force a discussion that few other teams in the country can match.

“We played five top-10 teams out of 12 regular-season games, and you look at what some other teams’ schedules were in front of us, quite frankly, it’s comical to think what their record would be if they played those teams.”

Based on the eye test, it’s impossible to predict what this Texas team is. They beat Oklahoma and Texas A&M by multiple scores and were blowing Vanderbilt off the field before a late fourth-quarter rally made the score closer than the game really was. Texas also lost to Florida and needed overtime to beat Kentucky and Mississippi State.

Can this Texas team play with anyone in the country? Yes. Can it struggle against anyone in the Power 4? Also yes.

The committee’s job is going to be harder than it’s ever been. Sankey will probably flood the airwaves over the next week, saying the SEC should get five teams in the field. Unlike some of his other barnstorming arguments, this one’s got a fair case. The push to expand the field in 2026 will grow.

As the media headed toward Texas’ postgame news conference, a security guard directing the crowd told the group, “We’re all Ohio State fans now.”

Left for dead, its quarterback deemed a flop, Texas has stormed back into the discussion. It probably still needs some help. But a lot of uncomfortable conversations the CFP committee has been avoiding are about to take center stage.