If Texas had beaten Clemson in the first round of the College Football Playoff, it would have been the Longhorns’ only win against a ranked team, and it wouldn’t have happened until the postseason.
The morning after Notre Dame embarrassed Indiana in its first-ever home FBS playoff game, the ESPN College GameDay staff informed us that the Hoosiers might not have made it to the College Football Playoff anyway.
The Hoosiers went 11-1 in the regular season and earned the No. 10 seed, but did not beat a ranked team all year. With just two chances, they lost to the No. 1 player in the world at the time. No. 2 Ohio State won 38-15, and No. 7 Notre Dame won 27-17 on Friday night.
“I’m not going to sit here and say why Indiana is in there, but Indiana, considering what you guys want to talk about, they’ve won 11 games and they’ve got to be one of the best teams. ” Kirk Herbstreit said. “Indiana was the underdog in that game. Physically, they weren’t the team that should have been on that field considering the other teams that would have been on that field. It doesn’t matter to Indiana. They’re great. I spent a year there.”
“But we have to move on with the playoffs and I hope the committee does a better job of weighing who’s in the best 12 and who’s most deserving. ‘Cause they won 11 So. They didn’t beat anybody. But they won 11 games. We need to find the best team, but just standing on that field last night and watching the game play out. It was incredibly obvious.”
“Indiana was an underdog in that game.” @KirkHerbstreit on Indiana’s loss to Notre Dame in South Bend in the first round of the CFP. pic.twitter.com/Tm7PMKX9Ay
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) December 21, 2024
Pat McAfee also briefly mentioned SMU’s restart from the ACC over Alabama.
But while we were complaining about the strength of their resumes and schedules, there was one person that no one at that desk mentioned. Perhaps it actually matters less which team plays than who turns on the TV to watch that team play, no matter who the opponent is.
Texas went 11-2 and earned the No. 5 seed, which is the highest seed a team can earn without winning a conference championship. That spot should be reserved for teams that endured the gauntlet but played against better teams in the conference, and that’s half the case for the Longhorns.
The Longhorns’ two losses were both to Georgia, which earned them the No. 2 seed behind undefeated Oregon State. However, none of those 11 wins were over a team included in the latest CFP rankings.
Texas defeated then-No. 10 Michigan was 31-12 at the beginning of the season, but the Wolverines ended up being a 7-5 football team. The Longhorns’ next win in the ranks is against Oklahoma, and we all know how that turned out as the 6-6 Sooners head to the Armed Forces Bowl.
The week after beating OU, Texas lost 30-15 to Georgia, which would still be considered a ranked win today. Then the following week, Texas defeated Vanderbilt, which was ranked 25th at the time but is now 6-6.
The Longhorns’ biggest win of the season came against in-state rival Texas A&M, a trip to the SEC Championship Game. However, the Aggies lost consecutive games with 8 wins and 4 losses, dropping them out of the top 25 and ending the regular season.
Unfortunately, we’re in the postseason and the mighty Texas hasn’t beaten a single ranked team heading into a matchup with bottom-seeded Clemson in the playoffs.
There’s not much of an argument against Texas making the College Football Playoff, but even with the SEC patch on Texas’ uniforms, the Longhorns wouldn’t have gone the same way as Indiana and SMU. I don’t want you to think about it.
