Steve Sarkisian Disputes That Texas Has Underachieved. Can It Nonetheless Make CFP?

If you’re a Texas fan, don’t tell Steve Sarkisian that you feel the Longhorns have underachieved this season. 

The Texas head coach disagreed with the notion that his 7-3 Longhorns squad has underachieved this season when he was asked why that’s the case this season at his press conference on Monday.

“According to who?” Sarkisian said. 

As the reporter mentioned that Texas was voted No. 1 in the preseason AP Poll, Sarkisian strongly defended his players. 

“I guess that is into whoever voted us No. 1,” Sarkisian replied. “What I think is that his team has competed their tail off. They’ve been faced with a lot of different adversity and injuries, and a lot of stuff has come across this team’s plate. And I’m very, very proud of them with their resiliency. 

“At the end of the day, at the University of Texas, we’re held to a very high standard, and the standard is to compete for championships year in and year out. We’re going to play the best teams in the country. We’re going to schedule the best teams in the country. But, by the end of the season, of our 12 regular season opponents, five of those teams will be top-10 teams when we played them, so nearly half our schedule.”

Texas certainly hasn’t had an ideal year for a team that had championship aspirations. It was blown out by Georgia on Saturday, 35-10, in a game that was viewed as a potential must-win in order to keep Texas’ playoff hopes alive. 

However, some also believe that Texas could possibly play itself into the CFP if it is able to take down Texas A&M in its regular-season finale. Sarkisian seems to think that should be the case, too. 

“We have an opportunity at the end of the regular season to do something that nobody’s done since 2019 and that’s beat three top-10 ranked teams in the regular season,” Sarkisian told reporters on Monday. “The last team to do that was LSU with Joe Burrow. So, have we been faced with a pretty difficult schedule? Have we been faced with high expectations? Sure, but that’s why we came here. So we’ll be OK.”

Texas A&M, who was ranked third in the most recent CFP Poll, seems likely to be undefeated when Texas plays the Aggies to close out the regular season. Texas A&M takes on Samford this weekend, while Texas hosts Arkansas. 

So, if Texas is able to beat Texas A&M, it would almost certainly give its in-state rival its first loss of the season. And, as Sarkisian mentioned, it would be Texas’ third win over a top-10 team this season, taking down other CFP hopefuls Oklahoma and Vanderbilt earlier this season. 

But Texas has also had some less-than-impressive results. Even though Texas gave No. 1 Ohio State its toughest test this season, its other loss came to a Florida team with a 3-7 record. Three of its wins have also come against non-power conference schools, and two of its wins were overtime victories over Kentucky and Mississippi State — who have a combined three wins in SEC play this season.

That begs the question, should Texas make the CFP at 9-3, even if it does beat Texas A&M? FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt doesn’t think so. 

“I know I was setting that up. The committee was setting that up over the last couple of weeks with those playoff rankings,” Klatt said on his podcast, “The Joel Klatt Show,” on the possibility of Texas making the CFP at 9-3. “But here’s the thing, when you get beat 35-10, that’s a different story. You’ve got to at least watch and look at how the games are played out. For Texas, that’s clearly the case here. Their résumé is not great.

“Even if they finished 9-3, is it good enough to get in? Probably not after the way they just lost that Georgia game,” Klatt added. “35-10 is hard to come back from.” 

As we’re only in the second year of the 12-team College Football Playoff, we’re still getting acquainted with what an at-large team must do in order to make the field. But no three-loss team made the CFP last season as an at-large. 

In fact, Klatt compared this year’s Texas team to last year’s Alabama team, which just missed the CFP, for why he thinks the Longhorns shouldn’t make the playoff this year.  

“These résumés are eerily similar,” Klatt said. “Last year’s Alabama team also finished 9-3. They each had big wins. Bama, last year, had a big win against Georgia. Texas, this year, has a big win against OU. They each had respectable road losses. Bama, last year, had a road loss at Tennessee. This year, Texas had a respectable road loss at Ohio State. Alabama had an upset loss last year that was unexpected on the road against Vandy. That was at Florida for this year’s Texas team. Then, they each had a blowout loss late in the season, on the road, in the SEC. Bama got beaten badly by Oklahoma late last year. Now, Texas has been beaten badly by Georgia this year. 

“Those are identical résumés.”

Of course, Klatt left room for the possibility that chaos strikes over the next couple of weeks and Texas climbs its way back into the top 10 as a result. But he disagrees with the idea that Texas should be given some extra grace for playing at Ohio State in a non-conference game now after suffering a blowout loss to Georgia. 

“I’m not seeing the push to reward Michigan for scheduling Oklahoma that I’m seeing for Texas for scheduling Ohio State,” Klatt said. “If you play it out and everyone gets that bump, then let’s play that game. But we can’t be selective with that game of who gets credit for scheduling what non-conference game in what location because Texas and Michigan would be in a very similar boat if that came up.” 

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