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What Texas’ loss in SEC title game means


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After losing to Georgia in Saturday’s thrilling SEC Championship Game, Texas football must walk the long path to a national championship.

The Longhorns, at 11-2, are safely in the College Football Playoff field. But they won’t be earning a first-round bye; those are awarded to the four highest-ranked conference champions.

Now, no matter where it lands in the final CFP rankings, the highest seed Texas can earn in the playoff bracket is the fifth seed. Seeds five through eight will host a first-round game Dec. 20 or Dec. 21, with seeds nine through 12 going on the road.

So, will Texas be playing a home game at Royal-Memorial Stadium in two weeks?

The official bracket is set to be revealed from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. CT Sunday on ESPN. For now, though, here’s a look at where Texas could land:

Will Texas football host a first-round College Football Playoff game?

The Longhorns now join a glob of at least six two-loss teams from last week’s top-15, pending how Penn State and SMU fair in the final Power Four conference championship games Saturday night. One of those two-loss teams, Georgia, has a bye locked up.

Three of those two-loss teams didn’t play in their respective conference title games: Ohio State (No. 6), Tennessee (No. 7) and Miami (No. 12). The other — Arizona State — won the Big 12 championship game Saturday as the nation’s 15th ranked team. But, because the Sun Devils are five spots behind Boise State, another conference champ, they appear unlikely to earn the bye and pass Texas in the seeding bracket.

Ohio State and Tennessee are two of the biggest questions. How will the committee compare those teams to the likes of Texas, which has one more win and suffered its second loss in the SEC Championship Game? Well, it’s unclear. On a call last week, reporters made several attempts to pin down committee chair Warde Manuel on the issue, with little success.

“Listen, the committee has coaches, athletic directors, former players who have played the game,” Manuel said. “We have great respect for the teams that make their championship games, and we give them a lot of credit for what they’ve done throughout the season.

“But we’ve been asked by the commissioners to rank the top 25 through the end of the championship weekend, and so we have an obligation to take a look at those data points and the outcomes of those games in order to rank the final top 25, and that’s what they’ve asked us to do since the inception, and that’s what we’ll do this weekend once all the games are played.”

A long list of things would need to happen for Texas, which began the week at No. 2, to fall out of the hosting range.

Starting at the No. 5 seed slot, and working downward, to get to No. 9 (the first road game slot) Texas would likely have to meet four out of the six following conditions:

  • Be ranked below the loser of Penn State vs Oregon
  • Be ranked below idle Notre Dame
  • Be ranked below idle Ohio State
  • Be ranked below idle Tennessee
  • Be ranked below idle, one-loss Indiana

That seems unlikely. But the committee has acted ruthlessly toward teams that lost their title games in the past.

Georgia went into last season’s SEC title game at No. 1 and dropped all the way to No. 6 after losing to Alabama, thereby missing out on the final four-team playoff entirely.

Reach Texas Insider David Eckert via email at deckert@gannett.comFollow the American-Statesman on Facebook and X for more. Your subscription makes work like this possible. Get access to all of our best content with this tremendous offer.



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