{"id":29761,"date":"2025-10-31T18:37:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T18:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/29761\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T18:37:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T18:37:12","slug":"no-20-texas-returns-home-to-face-no-9-vandy-in-matchup-with-cfp-implications-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/29761\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 20 Texas returns home to face No. 9 Vandy in matchup with CFP implications"},"content":{"rendered":"

Championship teams, Texas<\/a> coach Steve Sarkisian<\/a> mused last Monday in his weekly news conference, are required to at some point win games that they \u201caren\u2019t supposed to\u201d in order to sustain lofty aspirations. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s by no means incorrect, but, there\u2019s two notes to consider. The first: Texas, by all accounts and expectations, was supposed to beat Kentucky and Mississippi State. The second: The opponent that stands between it and that championship lifeline has become the modern day model of of improbable success. <\/p>\n

The Longhorns \u2014 ranked No. 20 in the AP Top 25 with a 6-2 record overall and a 3-1 record in Southeastern Conference play \u2014 play the ninth-ranked Vanderbilt Commodores (7-1, 3-1 SEC) at 11 a.m. Saturday<\/a> in a long-awaited return to DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium that may double as a decisive contest for the postseason fate of both sides. They haven\u2019t played at home since a 55-0 win vs. Sam Houston State on Sep. 20 and have played three true road games and one neutral site game since. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know our team is re-energized to be back at home,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cI\u2019m sure our fans, our students are going to be re-energized to be back at home. It\u2019s an 11 a.m. kick so everybody don\u2019t have too much fun on Halloween. We\u2019ll celebrate after.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sports Roundup<\/p>\n

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The Longhorns are 2.5-point favorites vs. the Commodores \u2014 a figure which might\u2019ve been difficult to comprehend before Vanderbilt\u2019s recent ascension into legitimacy \u2014 according to oddsmakers. Consider that a nod in favor of the home team; Vanderbilt\u2019s strength of resume (with wins over three ranked teams a single loss to another) trumps a Texas body of work that\u2019s currently propped up by a Red River Rivalry game victory vs. an Oklahoma team that looked its worst yet at the Cotton Bowl earlier this month. <\/p>\n

The availability of Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning<\/a> (concussion protocol) could ultimately swing that projection in one direction or another. The capabilities of Commodores quarterback Diego Pavia, a legitimate Heisman Trophy contender, can do the same. <\/p>\n

The Longhorns have won 16 of their last 17 games at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium but haven\u2019t beaten a top-10 team there in nearly a decade. Their last \u2014 a 35-34 win vs. No. 8 Baylor on Oct. 29, 2016 \u2014 preceded a stretch of five winless games vs. the nation\u2019s best programs at home. <\/p>\n

No. 10 Oklahoma State beat Texas in overtime in the 2017 season. In 2019, against eventual national champion LSU, the Joe Burrow-to-Justin Jefferson connection led the sixth-ranked Tigers to a wild win. Top-ranked Alabama beat them by a single point in the second game of the 2022 season and fourth-ranked TCU<\/a> beat them by a touchdown two months later on their route to the playoffs. Georgia, then the No. 5 team in the nation, delivered the Longhorns their only regular season loss last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s been 42 days, or something, since we last played in there,\u201d edge rusher Ethan Burke said. \u201cWe\u2019re just excited to be back with the fans, stay in Austin for the weekend and not travel to Kentucky or Mississippi or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Longhorns were taken into overtime by two teams that are a combined 0 and 9 in conference play this season and stumbled on both sides of the ball along the way in their jaunt through the South. They posted their worst offensive grade this season (55.4, according to Pro Football Focus) against the Wildcats and their worst defensive grade (64.5) against the Bulldogs. <\/p>\n

On the topic of championships: Zero three-loss teams earned an at-large bid into last year\u2019s College Football Playoff field. Clemson was the only program with more than two losses to qualify and it needed to beat SMU in the ACC championship<\/a> game to trigger its automatic entry. <\/p>\n

The Longhorns have just a 41% chance to reach the playoffs, per ESPN\u2019s model, while the Commodores have a 44% chance. Georgia and Texas A&M<\/a> \u2014 each of which would all but surely squeeze into the 12-team bracket if the playoffs started this week \u2014 are both left to play. Those games may decide nothing more than whether the Longhorns play in the Citrus Bowl or the Music City Bowl if Vanderbilt isn\u2019t dispatched. <\/p>\n

Find more Longhorns coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Find more college sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Championship teams, Texas coach Steve Sarkisian mused last Monday in his weekly news conference, are required to at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3230,3688,3231,27,29,537,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-29761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-arch-manning","9":"tag-colleges","10":"tag-steve-sarkisian","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-texas-headlines","13":"tag-texas-longhorns","14":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}