Two things can be true at the same time. The Texas Longhorns have been a bitter disappointment this season. But they are still a contender for the SEC title and National Championship.
Sitting at 6-2 overall and 3-1 in the SEC, the Longhorns need to win out to have any hope of getting into the College Football Playoff. Running the table would also put them in a good position for a spot in the conference championship, which they wouldn’t necessarily need to win, depending on how things shake out with the other contenders.
Going 4-0 from here is a tall task considering their remaining schedule looks like this: Vanderbilt, at Georgia, Arkansas, and Texas A&M. It’s worth a reminder, though, that Texas was the preseason favorite to not only win the sport’s toughest conference, but also the national title.
The Longhorns, even with Arch Manning dealing with a concussion, are good enough to pull this off.
According to SP+, a catch-all metric developed by ESPN’s Bill Connelly, Texas is the 13th-best team in the country, powered by the No. 3 defense in FBS, at least according to SP+. The offense, which grades out at No. 53, certainly leaves a lot to be desired, especially given the hype around Manning, but there are reasons to take the glass-half-full approach with Texas.
The most important thing is that there is a path. It may sound counterintuitive, but the fact that Texas has to take on three of the best teams in college football to close out the season is a good thing. If they had a soft runway down the stretch, the selection committee could easily write them off, even at 10-2.
Wins over Vanderbilt, Georgia, and Texas A&M would make it nearly impossible to leave Texas on the sidelines, especially since one of their losses came against Ohio State.
Betting on College Football?
You can also spin Texas’ struggles on offense into a reason for optimism. The Longhorns have been able to stay alive despite an uninspiring attack, so any improvement on that side of the ball would go a long way toward turning Hook’em back into the team we all thought we’d see in August.
And even if the offense doesn’t get better, the Longhorns have a terrific defense, which means they don’t need to go out and blow teams away to get results. That should help ease the burden on the offense if Manning is forced to miss some time.
We also shouldn’t forget that we saw a team in a similar, though not identical, predicament win the national championship last season.
Ohio State lost twice in the regular season in 2024, including to Michigan in its final game. The Buckeyes still got into the dance thanks to wins over Penn State and Indiana, but they were unfancied when the tournament began. In fact, the perception of the Buckeyes was so low at the end of the campaign that there were plenty of Buckeye backers who wanted Ryan Day to lose his job.
A few weeks later, he was the toast of the town.
As things stand, Texas is 50/1 to win the National Championship and 20/1 to win the SEC (BetMGM Sportsbook). If those numbers seem tempting to you already, go for it. But you could also try to raise the ceiling of your payout by starting a rolling parlay with this week’s game against Vanderbilt.
To do that, you’d bet Texas on the moneyline (-115) against Vanderbilt, and if they win, you’d take your stake plus the profit and put it on the Longhorns to beat Georgia. You’d repeat this process until they win out, lose, or you want off the ride.
Some quick back-of-the-napkin math shows a more robust payout if you take this route.
One thing we’ve learned in this new age of college football is that you should be very careful counting teams out. We saw it last year with Notre Dame and Ohio State, and we’re seeing it this season with the Irish and Alabama. Texas may not join that list, but there’s value betting on it happening.
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Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.
