For Texas football, the hunt for a national championship is officially over.
On Sunday, Texas was not among the 12 teams included in the College Football Playoff bracket. Texas was 13th in the final rankings.
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Due to the playoff bracket’s inclusion of No. 20 Tulane and No. 24 James Madison, which both won their conference championships, Texas needed to earn a top-10 ranking in order to make the postseason cut. The 12 members on the CFP committee, however, decided to award the final at-large bids to No. 9 Alabama (10-3) and No. 10 Miami (10-2).
Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian hold up the sign of the horns during “The Eyes of Texas,” after the loss to Georgia at Sanford Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025 in Athens, Georgia.
Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman
Here are the final rankings:
TEXAS VS. MICHIGAN
When/where: Noon Dec. 31 in Orlando, Fla.
TV/radio: ABC/ESPN; 1300 AM, 98.1 FM, 105.3 FM (Spanish)
Indiana (13-0)
Ohio State (12-1)
Georgia (12-1)
Texas Tech (12-1)
Oregon (11-1)
Ole Miss (11-1)
Texas A&M (11-1)
Oklahoma (10-2)
Alabama (10-3)
Miami (10-2)
Notre Dame (10-2)
BYU (11-2)
Texas (9-3)
Vanderbilt (10-2)
Utah (10-2)
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Texas spent part of the past week politicking for a spot in the playoff. The Longhorns lauded their three wins over opponents that were top-10 teams in the Associated Press poll at the time. Texas also argued that it should not be punished for scheduling and then losing a tough nonconference game against Ohio State.
MORE: Texas coach Steve Sarkisian makes College Football Playoff case on National Signing Day
But Sunday’s reveal wasn’t a huge surprise. Texas was ranked 13th on Tuesday when the second-to-last rankings were released, and CFP committee chair Hunter Yurachek made it clear afterward that the Longhorns were being weighed down by their 29-21 loss at Florida in early October. Texas also was idle this past weekend, so it didn’t have a chance to make a last-second impression in a conference championship game, and not too many of the teams ranked ahead of UT were in a position to drop in the rankings.
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Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) dodges Texas A&M Aggies safety Dalton Brooks (25) to run the ball in for a touchdown in the fourth quarter of the Lone Star Showdown, the rivalry match-up between the Longhorns and Texas A&M Aggies at Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Nov. 28, 2025. The Longhorns won the game 17-27.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
Sarkisian: ‘Agree to disagree’ on CFP decision
While speaking to the local media Wednesday, UT coach Steve Sarkisian seemed resigned to his team’s fate. This will mark the first time since the 2022 season that Texas did not qualify for the College Football Playoff.
“I’m at a point now where we can agree to disagree on what the principles and the parameters are on what makes up one of the best 12 teams in the country to play in the playoff,” Sarkisian said. “I have a lot of respect for those guys on the committee. It’s a hard job, and there’s a lot of really good teams that they’re trying to choose between, and they’re trying to figure it out. They valued losses more than they valued the wins.
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“At the end of the day, they looked at the record, and what is your record? That’s fine, but just tell us that that’s what it is. I just don’t like contradicting yourself when you tell me it’s about strength of schedule, and you tell me about it’s head-to-head, but yet then you make a decision predicated on what’s our record.”
Sarkisian said he didn’t have an issue with five playoff spots being reserved for conference champions. But the fifth-year Texas coach argued that his team was deserving of an at-large bid and expressed frustration with the CFP committee seemingly straying from its stated belief that strength of schedule and head-to-head competitions are the two biggest factors in deciding playoff qualifiers. On ESPN’s metric for measuring the strength of schedules, Texas ranks behind only one playoff team (Alabama). The Longhorns also beat two playoff qualifiers (Texas A&M and Oklahoma).
“I get it, they don’t have an easy job. I respect everybody on that committee for the time and efforts that they put in to try to put the best teams in there,” Sarkisian said. “It just is what it is. What I’ve learned out of this whole thing is we’ve got to control what we can control, and we’ve got to win more games, and we’ve got to win the games that are right in front of us. And clearly we didn’t do enough of that this year.”
What’s next for Texas? Likely a trip to Florida
Texas’ season didn’t end Sunday. The Longhorns will play Michigan in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla. on Dec. 31. A bowl game in Florida, however, is not what most expected out of Texas when it entered this season as the No. 1 team in the preseason polls. Texas now joins a long list of preseason favorites that failed to win a national title. In fact, only three such teams — Florida State in 1999, USC in 2004 and Alabama in 2017 — have won a national championship since 1998.
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Note: This story was updated with Texas’ bowl game and opponent.