The No. 7 Texas Longhorns went to Columbia with two losses and little room to make the committee’s job harder. It left with a 34-20 win over the No. 18 Missouri Tigers, another ranked opponent beaten, and a fourth quarter that gave the Longhorns something more useful than help from somebody else’s scoreboard.
Trailing 20-13 in the third quarter, Texas scored the final 21 points as Raleek Brown caught the go-ahead touchdown with 5:03 left and added the final score on the ground after Warren Roberson’s forced fumble returned by Graceson Littleton. The defense kept Missouri off the board throughout the fourth by limiting the Tigers to 30 total yards and one first down on 1.8 yards per play.
That moved Texas to 7-2 and 4-2 in the SEC. The harder question is what those seven wins buy when several teams around the Longhorns can make a playoff argument of their own.
Start with one set of rankings. Every ranking below comes from the CFP committee’s Nov. 3 release, the most recent available. Records and results include Saturday’s completed games. Mixing a September AP ranking with a November CFP ranking makes the comparison look cleaner than it is.
Four wins worth putting on the table
Texas now has wins over four teams in that CFP top 25:
- No. 10 Ole Miss, 34-27 in Austin
- No. 12 Ohio State, 24-23 in Austin
- No. 13 Tennessee, 20-17 in Knoxville
- No. 18 Missouri, 34-20 in Columbia
The Texas schedule and Saturday’s result give the Longhorns two of those wins on the road. Missouri’s No. 18 was already on the committee’s board; the Longhorns didn’t need to borrow the Tigers’ ranking from some better week in September.
There is a limit to that count. It describes the committee’s first rankings, not a guarantee that all four opponents will stay in the top 25. Ohio State lost 41-28 to No. 23 Oregon, Ole Miss lost 42-7 to No. 2 Georgia, and Missouri fell to Texas. Opponents keep playing after Texas beats them, and their results keep changing what those wins are worth.
The same care belongs on the other side. Texas lost 27-24 to Oklahoma in Dallas and 27-24 to Florida at home. Florida was No. 24 in the first CFP rankings. Oklahoma was outside the top 25.
Two losses by six combined points tell part of the story, but they don’t erase the opponents or the chances Texas had to finish those games — a serious argument for the Longhorns has to carry both sides.
Tennessee made the Texas win more useful
The most helpful result outside Columbia came in Knoxville, where No. 13 Tennessee beat No. 6 Kentucky 34-6.
Texas already won in that stadium. Alabama lost there, 26-10. Kentucky left without a touchdown.
That gives Texas a direct answer in two different comparisons. Against Tennessee, the Longhorns have the head-to-head win on the road. Against Kentucky, they handled a common opponent the Wildcats could not. Tennessee getting better results makes the September win worth more, even if it also gives the Volunteers a stronger playoff case of their own.
That isn’t a transitive ranking system. Texas beating Tennessee doesn’t settle every comparison with a team Tennessee beat. The committee’s protocol lists strength of schedule, head-to-head competition, results against common opponents and other relevant factors for separating otherwise comparable teams. Those are pieces of a full season, not shortcuts around it.
Still, Kentucky entered Saturday one spot ahead of Texas. The Wildcats’ loss and the Longhorns’ road win give the committee a concrete reason to reconsider that order Tuesday.
Alabama has an answer, too
Alabama entered the weekend at No. 5, two places ahead of Texas with the same 6-2 record. Both won Saturday, with the Crimson Tide beating No. 14 LSU 31-13 in Baton Rouge.
The Tennessee comparison favors Texas. The losses favor Alabama.
The Crimson Tide’s two defeats came against Georgia and Tennessee, No. 2 and No. 13 in the committee’s first rankings. Alabama also beat Kentucky 45-17 on the road and South Carolina 49-18 before adding LSU. Those three opponents were No. 6, No. 21, and No. 14 in the same rankings.
Texas has four wins against that top 25 to Alabama’s three, but the Crimson Tide avoided a loss to a team outside it. Texas can point to winning in Knoxville and Columbia; Alabama can point to winning in Lexington and Baton Rouge.
That is a real résumé comparison. Picking only the Tennessee result would leave out the strongest part of Alabama’s case. Picking only the losses would leave out the strongest part of Texas’. The Longhorns have enough on the win side to make the discussion worth having, but Missouri didn’t settle it for them.
The teams outside the SEC still count
No. 8 UCLA stayed unbeaten with a 34-20 win at Minnesota. Texas was already ahead of the Bruins in the first rankings despite having two losses, but an undefeated team directly behind the Longhorns is a reason to keep winning, not to assume the SEC comparison settles everything.
No. 9 BYU lost 28-20 at No. 3 Utah, giving the Cougars a second loss and unbeaten Utah another win over a team the committee already valued. But BYU’s best win got stronger that night.
No. 11 Notre Dame beat No. 1 Miami 31-24, leaving both teams 8-1. The Irish now have a win over the committee’s top-ranked team and one fewer loss than Texas. That’s a serious challenge from a team that started the weekend four spots behind the Longhorns.
BYU beat Notre Dame 28-24 in October. The Cougars’ loss in Salt Lake City hurts their case, but the Irish beating Miami improves the value of that head-to-head win.
Saturday created openings around Texas. Other contenders added to their cases, too.
Keep adding wins before counting invitations
The committee had Texas seventh before the Missouri game. That matters: the Longhorns were already being evaluated favorably with both losses included. Saturday supplied another road win rather than another reason to explain a missed opportunity.
It also left three regular-season games to play: at LSU, home against Arkansas and at Texas A&M. Winning them would put Texas at 10-2. Losing another would force the Longhorns to ask the committee to weigh a third defeat against the work already done.
There is no need to promise what either record would guarantee. The rest of the field keeps changing, too.
For now, Texas has a useful collection of wins, a head-to-head result that got better Saturday, and a pair of losses that still complicate the case. The Missouri win strengthened the argument because Texas finished a game it trailed in the second half, on the road, against another team the committee had ranked.
The next chance to add to it is in Baton Rouge. Texas will be better served winning there than hoping the committee likes its explanations.
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