With an undefeated season, a top offense, several upsets, and a Big 12 Championship, the Texas Longhorns are poised to make a run at the College Football Playoffs, being that they are one of the four teams selected today.
Georgia has an argument as one of the best one-loss squads, as do Alabama and Texas, which upset the Crimson Tide 34-24 on the road on Sept. 9 and took down No. 18 Oklahoma State 49-21 in the Big 12 championship game.
On Saturday, the Crimson Tide and Longhorns captured conference championships, a feat the Bulldogs failed to accomplish when they lost the SEC Championship to Nick Saban and Alabama.
But as for Texas, the Longhorns are looking ahead to the College Football Playoffs, hoping to be one of the four teams selected in the final year of the low-number field — next year, it will change to 12 slots.
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian says it feels good to win the Big 12.
"It’s been a long time coming,” Sarkisian said. “I know everybody is starving for this championship to get it on our final game in the Big 12. I hope everybody enjoys this as much as we do.”
When asked about wanting a spot in the College Football Playoffs, Sarkisian said he thinks his team deserves it, and history appears to be on their side, as an undefeated champion from a Power 5 league has never been left out of the CFP.
“We think we are one of those for sure we do, but this is a vote that we don’t get to go to the election booth and vote it’s in their hands,” he said. “All we can do like we told the players, can control what we can control. Now, let’s play the best football we could, and I thought we did that today.”
With Georgia losing to Alabama and Oregon’s loss Friday night to Washington in the Pac-12 title game, many believe Texas has a good shot of making it into the top four and a berth in the College Football Playoffs.
The official announcement of who’s in and who isn’t is scheduled for today at 11:00 a.m. CST.