If Texas beats Clemson in the first round of the College Football Playoff, it will be the Longhorns' only win over a ranked team and wouldn't have come until the postseason.
The morning after Notre Dame embarrassed Indiana in the first-ever home FBS playoff game, the ESPN College GameDay crew let it known the Hoosiers might not have belonged in the College Football Playoff anyway.
The Hoosiers were 11-1 in the regular season, earning the 10th seed, but didn't beat a ranked team all year. In their only two chances, they lost to then-No. 2 Ohio State 38-15 then to No. 7 Notre Dame 27-17 on Friday night.
"I'm not gonna sit here and say why was Indiana in, but Indiana, with what you guys like to talk about, they have 11 wins, they gotta be one of the best teams," Kirk Herbstreit said. "Indiana was outclassed in that game. They should not, physically, it was not a team that should have been on that field when you consider other teams that could have been there. It's no knock on Indiana. They had a great year.
"But we've got to move forward with the playoff and hope that the committee does a better job of weighing who the best 12 are versus who's the most deserving, because, by golly they got 11 wins. They didn't beat anybody, but they got 11 wins. That's a bunch of BS. We need to find the best teams, and last night it was incredibly evident, just standing on that field and watching the game the way it played out."
"Indiana was outclassed in that game."@KirkHerbstreit on Indiana's first-round CFP loss to Notre Dame in South Bend. pic.twitter.com/Tm7PMKX9Ay
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) December 21, 2024
Pat McAfee also briefly mentioned the resume of SMU, which got in from the ACC over Alabama.
However, while we're griping about resumes and strength of schedules, there was one no one on that desk mentioned. Maybe it's actually less about who teams play and more about who will turn on the TV to watch that team play no matter who it's against.
Texas, at 11-2, earned the 5 seed, the highest seed a team can earn without winning a conference championship. That slot should be reserved for the team that endured a gauntlet but slipped up against one team better in its conference, which is half true for the Longhorns.
Both of the Longhorns' losses came to Georgia, which got the 2 seed behind undefeated Oregon. But none of those 11 wins were over teams included in the most recent CFP rankings.
Texas beat then-No. 10 Michigan 31-12 early in the season, but the Wolverines ended up being a 7-5 football team. The Longhorns' next ranked win came against Oklahoma, and we all know how that ended up as the 6-6 Sooners are headed to the Armed Forces Bowl.
The week after beating OU, Texas lost to Georgia 30-15, which would have still been considered a ranked win today. Then the next week Texas beat Vanderbilt, hanging on at No. 25 at the time but is now 6-6.
The Longhorns' biggest win of the season came against in-state rival Texas A&M to get into the SEC championship game. But the Aggies ended the regular season with back-to-back losses and at 8-4 to be left out of the top 25.
Alas, here we are in the postseason, and mighty Texas hasn't beaten a single ranked team heading into a matchup with Clemson, the lowest-seeded team in the playoff.
There's not much argument against Texas getting into the College Football Playoff, but let's not pretend the Longhorns didn't take the same road in as Indiana and SMU, even if Texas has that SEC patch on its jersey now.