This is very close. But in my opinion conferences just need to go away completely and it becomes one "league." Perfect on eight, 8 team divisions. But they have to be balanced which means Texas and Oklahoma, Georgia and Alabama, Penn St and Ohio St probably need to be in separate divisions. And with a 5 game OOC schedule that would be easy to make as a permanent OOC rival ala SWC/BIG8.
A lot of the reason we are where we are is one league had so much more power cache than everyone else that it tipped the scales in their favor. We need balance divisions. Go TXHS style, top two from each division goes to the playoffs. No more subjectivity. No more penalty for great OOC matchups.
I'm 100% good with using it like an NFL preseason and starting KJ Lacey, Simon, Ffrench, Lockett, etc.
But we know that's not what the lot of y'all want. You want 1s vs 1s and to win.
I mean if we roll out there with a freshman/sophomore team and get all the young guys reps I'm down. I think Manning, Simmons, Wisner have done enough to go ahead and get rest and prepare for the off-season 🤷🏼♂️
So we can skip past the "you're a pussy, what a bitch" comments. Just answer honestly.
If Arch Manning or Colin Simmons tears their ACL in a bowl game that causes them to miss most of (if not all) 2026 is the juice worth the squeeze? All to say "we beat Michigan"
Even if he did make it this drive started 10 yards back from where it most likely would've started had they returned a Kickoff. The kick really didn't change much. Ohio St needed 7 there.
My problem is, if it's not about "who do we think the best 12 are" I'd like to know what exactly these three teams have accomplished to justify their ranking other than having a 0/1/ 2 in the L column.
Indiana
Texas Tech
Notre Dame
We're giving a team #2 for beating Oregon and not really anything else.
A team #5 for beating BYU and Utah
And a team #9 for losing to #7 and #12 closely.
What the fuck are we doing?
This has made me realize that we have a bit of a complex as a fanbase. We have people that truly think we are capable of rolling out 2005 Texas every year and should just mow any and everybody down that's in the way.
They're acting like our schedule looks like this next year and we have to anchor our schedule with Oklahoma and an OOC blueblood. Guys, this is over with:
@ Kansas St
Iowa St
Kansas
@ Oklahoma St
That win is much harder to come by and despite your belief of it wielding some super rankings boost (it doesn't) the cost/reward of it just isn't there. You do understand Texas has three top 10 wins, right? It's currently doing fuck all for us, despite nobody else having anything close to that.
It's not about being frightened, there are no cowards in this program. It's about percentages and probabilities. If you don't believe me, look at our all time record against Oklahoma then look at our all time record against Baylor. You'll find your answer there.
Ya, it's a shitty system. And every fan of the game should be fuckin pissed and realize that all schedules aren't created equally and that it's really not far fetched that a 9-3 team with a really hard schedule is better than an 11-1 team with a mediocre schedule. But everyone has this obsession with viewing college football like it's 1985 and the AP voters still run the show. It's dumb as fuck.
But it's Texas' job to put themselves in a position to succeed. And going to war with bluebloods and locking ourselves out while BYU, Texas Tech, and, Indiana coast along is not OK by any measure.
Here's the issue I have when people say this. Ohio State has a 77% win rate at the horseshoe. More often than not, you're going to walk in there and lose that game. Our best team ever fought for their lives to walk out with a three point win (2005 Texas) so this whole "just win" narrative is low key dumb as fuck.
Buddy, we're not here to join some country club and be surrounded by peers. To quote Herm Edwards: "You play to win the game." Right now the game does NOT value tough OOC games. There is no virtue in it.