Joel Klatt expresses doubt in Texas' College Football Playoff chances after loss to Georgia

FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt isn’t buying the idea that Texas can still fight its way into the College Football Playoff. Not after the Longhorns were blasted 35–10 by Georgia on Saturday.

On his latest episode of The Joel Klatt Show, the longtime analyst pushed back hard against the growing narrative that Texas remains alive in the race. He called the discussion “nauseating” and pointed to a résumé he believes simply doesn’t measure up for the Longhorns.

Klatt acknowledged that some voices in the sport, including within the CFP machine itself, had been laying the groundwork for a potential Texas argument over the past two weeks. But after the Longhorns were overwhelmed by the Bulldogs, Klatt said the tone has to shift: “When you get beat 35–10, that’s a different story,” he said. “We’ve got to actually look at how these games play out.”

From Klatt’s perspective, the résumé does not match a Playoff team. Texas carries three losses, including an upset defeat at Florida, and both of their overtime wins came against Kentucky and Mississippi State — programs with just three combined SEC wins.

Wins over Oklahoma and Vanderbilt give the Longhorns some quality. Still, Klatt argues they’re not nearly enough to overcome the rest of the profile.

To illustrate his case, Klatt compared Texas to last year’s Alabama team, a group that went 9–3 and was left out of the 2024 Playoff: “These résumés are eerily similar,” he said.

Both teams had one marquee win, both suffered a respectable road loss, both were tripped up by a surprising upset, and both were blown out late in the year in SEC play: “Those are identical résumés,” Klatt emphasized, adding that Alabama never came close to serious Playoff consideration.

Additionally, Klatt pushed back against the argument that Texas deserves a boost for scheduling Ohio State, calling out the inconsistency in how fans and analysts apply the “strength of schedule” argument: “I’m not seeing the push to reward Michigan for scheduling Oklahoma the way I’m seeing that push for Texas,” he said.

Ultimately, Klatt believes the Longhorns would need massive chaos, and likely several collapses, to realistically re-enter the conversation: “I just don’t think they’ve got enough, nor should they,” Klatt said. “There are going to be several 10–2 teams with better résumés.”

Alas, Texas still faces Texas A&M to close the regular season, but in Klatt’s eyes, the path forward is slim at best. Without widespread upheaval across the country, the Longhorns’ Playoff hopes may have evaporated the moment they walked out of Athens on the wrong end of a blowout.