Georgia didn’t just turn Darrell K Royal Texas-Memorial Stadium into a trash-strewn field of tattered undefeated dreams. The Bulldogs went so far as to shift Austin’s calendar from October to December when they left Austin with a prime-time win.
Call it Kirby Smart wizardry. Not even Minister of Culture Matthew McConaughey can break that spell.
“It really feels like, from here on out,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said Monday during his weekly news conference, “we’re kind of in an SEC Championship game.”
Meaning: The No. 5 Longhorns (6-1), after Saturday’s 30-15 loss to Georgia, are only ever one loss away from near-disqualification from December’s conference title game. In turn, as Sarkisian said, “every game matters to that degree.”
And as things pertain to the College Football Playoff? It’s only slightly less drastic. The previous four-team format was especially harsh on one-loss teams. Undefeated Florida State, Georgia (one loss) and Ohio State (one loss) were each left out of the postseason last year, and Texas had to win its last seven games after its loss to Oklahoma last season to clinch the third seed.
ESPN’s playoff predictor still gives the Longhorns a 78% chance to clinch a spot in the 12-team postseason field. The Athletic’s model gives them a 75% chance. That’s the beauty of the expanded format: Yes, it theoretically allows for a more diverse group of competitors, but it also gives the blue-chip programs — like Alabama (which lost to Vanderbilt), Tennessee (which lost to Arkansas) and Texas — a larger margin for error. Saturday’s loss to Georgia didn’t help Texas’ postseason chances. It hardly disqualified them, either.
“I’d much rather get knocked down in the sixth round than get knocked out in the 12th round,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve got to get up off the mat, we’ve got to get back to work the way we know how to do it, which we will do. We’ll fight like crazy and we’ll make this a 12-round fight for the season.”
It’s just a matter of where Texas’ footing will be when the 12th round arrives. The four highest-ranked conference champions will each receive a first-round bye into the College Football Playoff quarterfinals. The remaining eight programs in the field will play first-round games on the higher seed’s campus. Texas, as it stands in The Athletic’s model, would host currently undefeated Indiana in the first round and play projected ACC champion Miami in the quarterfinals.
Or, to avoid that, the Longhorns could just win the SEC Championship on Dec. 7 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
That, as Sarkisian alluded to, may be a more-exclusive ticket than one to the playoffs. The SEC disbanded divisions this season and effectively created a larger pool of would-be conference championship contenders. The Longhorns are one of five teams — alongside Vanderbilt, Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee — with one conference loss. Texas A&M and LSU, who play each other this week, are both undefeated in SEC play. There’s a six-step tiebreaker that starts with head-to-head records between tied teams and ends with, if necessary, a “random draw of tied teams.”
The Longhorns could stand to lose a second regular season game and still clinch a playoff berth as an at-large bid. ESPN’s SP+ statistic — a “predictive and forward-facing” metric that measures a team’s offensive and defensive efficiency — still rates Texas as the second-best nationwide behind only Ohio State. Things are still objectively good in Austin. But, to safely clinch a spot in the SEC Championship Game (and, through that, enhance their chances at a higher playoff seed), the Longhorns may need to win their final five games like they did last season in the Big 12.
“We have to put ourselves in Atlanta, right?” Sarkisian said. “If that’s what we want to be, we have to put ourselves there every Saturday; that’s what we’re competing for.”
The Longhorns are currently favored in each of their final five regular season games, according to College Football Insiders’ win probability metrics. This Saturday’s opponent — No. 25 Vanderbilt (5-2) — doesn’t care much for odds. The Commodores used their upset vs. Alabama earlier this month to propel themselves into fringe postseason discussion.
“It’s a very good Vanderbilt team, man,” Sarkisian said. “Coach [Clark] Lea has done a tremendous job building this program. He’s in year four. They’ve done a nice job of, one, building within, but also in the transfer portal. ... They play really, really good complementary football, and with that, you’ve got to maximize your possessions offensively.”
Texas has to maximize its last five games as a whole.
Its spot in the SEC Championship — and, playoffs — rely on it.
