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A year ago, making the College Football Playoff was considered a stretch for Texas. Coming off an improved but still underwhelming 8-5 season, Steve Sarkisian’s program was expected to compete for a conference championship in its last year in the Big 12, but not necessarily a national championship.
That all changed after one September night in Tuscaloosa. With a resounding 34-24 upset victory over Alabama, then the No. 5 team in the nation, the Longhorns put the college football world on notice: Texas was back.
After falling a play short of returning to the national championship game, Texas now hopes and expects to end its 15-year drought of playing for a National Championship. Also different this year is the playoff itself, ballooning from the top four teams to twelve. Making up the twelve will be the top five conference champions, with the highest-rated four getting a first-round bye and seven at-large bids.
Related: Which Transfer Portal Pass-Catching Arrival Will Have the Biggest Impact for Texas?
With eight additional spots up for grabs, ESPN has decided to publish a College Football Bubble Watch every week , similar to what bracketologists like Joe Lunardi do to project the 68-team field of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.
The first bubble watch, written by senior writer and college football analyst Heather Dinich , has Texas narrowly missing out on the conference champion bye but projects a relatively kind path to the final four for the Longhorns. Here’s what Dinich wrote about Texas, whom she projects will be the No. 5 seed, potentially taking on the highest-rated group of five champion Boise St., whom she projects will be the No. 12 seed:
“Mountain West Conference champion Boise State will finish the season ranked outside of the committee's top 12 but still earn the No. 12 seed as the committee's fifth-highest-ranked conference champion. Even though Texas finishes as the SEC runner-up -- and the committee's No. 3 team in its final top 25 ranking -- in this prediction, the Longhorns can't finish any higher than the No. 5 seed because the top four seeds go to conference champions.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dinich believes Georgia will beat Texas at the SEC championship game in Atlanta, propelling the Bulldogs to the No. 1 overall seed and the first-round bye that comes with it.
Here is her full predicted playoff field:
First-round Byes:
No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Ohio St, No. 3 Florida St., No. 4 Utah
First-round matchups:
No. 12 Boise St. at No. 5 Texas
No. 11 Penn St. at No. 6 Oregon
No. 10 Miami (FL) at No. 7 Notre Dame
No. 9 Alabama at No. 8 Ole Miss
Notably, Dinich has defending National Champion Michigan in the next four out and believes the Wolverines will lose to Texas in week 2, Oregon, and rivals Ohio St. in Head Coach Sherrone Moore’s first year at the helm.
Related: Steve Sarkisian Talks Texas’ Preparation For the SEC
As Texas Head Coach Steve Sarkisian has made it clear that he doesn’t want his players looking ahead, he has to hope his players aren't reading ESPN’s bubble watch weekly.
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