Julian Edlow breaks down a college football win total angle on the Texas Longhorns.<\/p>\n
Texas enters 2025 with tons of hype, and it\u2019s easy to understand why. The Longhorns have made the College Football Playoff in consecutive seasons, following 11-1 regular season records. Last year they were able to get by Clemson and Arizona State, before falling to eventual National Champion, Ohio State \u2014 which happens to be first up on the schedule in 2025. <\/p>\n
Now, Arch Manning takes over the reigns of this historic program. Naturally, there\u2019s excitement surrounding the Longhorns. But I\u2019m not convinced we shouldn\u2019t be fading the noise here. This team lost a lot off the 2024 roster, specifically on offense, and plays a very difficult schedule in 2025. <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the schedule, because it gets underway with what you could argue is the game of the year in college football. A rematch of that CFP game, where Texas was knocking on the door to tie it up late, but coughed up the ball and the Buckeyes moved on. I\u2019ll say this \u2014 it\u2019s a terrific revenge spot for the Longhorns. Perhaps Ohio State gets caught off guard in the opening game defending its championship. But that\u2019s about all I have to support Texas in this spot.<\/p>\n
Manning will be making his first career start on the road at the Horseshoe, and it\u2019ll be against an elite defense and rowdy crowd. While Manning\u2019s been working with these backup offensive lineman behind the scenes for a couple of years, the OL is still a work in progress. If Texas has trouble protecting against an elite Ohio State defensive front in a hostile atmosphere, things could go sideways. <\/p>\n
The trip to Columbus is the first of two times this season that we expect the Longhorns to be road underdogs. They also take a trip to Athens in November, and let\u2019s remember how much a significantly more talented roster last year struggled with the Bulldogs. Texas lost to Georgia as a five-point home favorite by 15 points, and then again in overtime in the SEC Championship Game, even with Carson Beck only playing half the game due to injury. Not to mention, Kirby Smart\u2019s Dawgs have won 31 consecutive games at home. <\/p>\n
Playing at Ohio State and at Georgia is just about as difficult a task as you can ask of a team in college football. If the Longhorns can\u2019t pull an upset in one of those games, we only need to find one more loss to keep them under their win total of 9.5, which is priced at an attractive +140. <\/p>\n
Following the OSU game, Texas plays three games it should easily win at home, ending with Sam Houston on September 27. It doesn\u2019t play another home game until it hosts Vanderbilt on November 1. That feels like a stretch that\u2019ll be tough to go unbeaten, even though two byes are mixed in on each end. There are SEC road trips to Florida, Kentucky and Mississippi State, along with the Cotton Bowl against a significantly improved Oklahoma team. After the road game in Athens, there are also home games against Arkansas and Texas A&M that could be tricky. <\/p>\n
While the defense should be strong once again, I\u2019m concerned that too much will be on Arch\u2019s shoulders in his first season as \u201cthe guy.\u201d I mentioned the inexperienced offensive line, which is a weakness in an offense that returns just three total starters. Plenty of skill position players are off to the NFL (or transferred), and leave Manning without many trustworthy targets or ballcarriers.<\/p>\n
While many publications have stamped the Longhorns with the preseason No. 1 label, I have a hard time believing that they\u2019ll live up to the hype. This is a tough schedule and there will be a slip up along the way. I\u2019ll take the plus-money on Texas to go under its win total. <\/p>\n
CFB Win Total Play: Texas UNDER 9.5 Wins (+140) \u2013 1-unit<\/a><\/p>\n Download the\u00a0DraftKings Sportsbook app<\/a> on\u00a0Apple<\/a> or\u00a0Google<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Julian Edlow breaks down a college football win total angle on the Texas Longhorns. Texas enters 2025 with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1607,399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-33890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}