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What rating systems think of the Texas Longhorns

by: Evan Vieth10/28/25
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Steve Sarkisian (Petre Thomas-Imagn Images)

In some ways, Texas escaped Mississippi State in a game they didn’t deserve to win.

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In another way, that wasn’t truly the case.

Ian Boyd and I talked about this Twitter post this morning.

I retweet it every week. Basically, this graph aims to show, on a play-by-play basis, which team did better. By this chart’s standard, Texas probably was the worse team in Starkville.

But this is just one stat. Success rate. A blank statement, was this play successful or not? Quintrevion Wisner’s four-yard rush has the same value as Ryan Wingo’s 60+ yard screen pass. A stop on 4th and 1 has the same value as an incompletion on 1st and 10.

Here’s another stat to look at.

Gameonpaper.com does real-time updates during games on advanced statistics as they happen. As you can see, Texas was 1% less successful than MS State! But they also were an above-average offense by EPA standards, while MS State was clearly below average. A .14 EPA/per play would be the 27th best in the nation, Ole Miss’s offense. That’s not bad company.

Texas clearly needs to do better on 3rd and in the red zone, and the Bulldogs created far too many havoc plays (pressures, turnovers, etc). But Texas found success with Arch Manning in both the run and pass game. I do think they were the better team on Saturday.

Onto the ratings systems.

Here is what the four main rating systems think of Texas. On average, they are the 12th best team in the nation with a top-six defense, top-20 special teams and an offense in the 50s. That kind of sums up the Longhorns, no?

I want to key in on the SOR tab, strength of record. While the forward-thinking ratings are fun, that SOR tab is actually the most important. That’s what the playoff committee will base their decisions on, the resume of the team.

SP+ has always been low on Texas this year, but KFord and FPI already have Texas as a ‘first four out’ playoff team.

KFord sees Texas’ resume as much better than Oklahoma, Tennessee and Missouri, three SEC teams ranked higher in the AP Poll. Five SEC teams make up the top nine, and then it’s Texas at sixth.

The text under the bolded title is an important thing to look at with Ford’s calculations.

Resume-based measure of how a team has performed against its schedule relative to how the No. 12 power-rated team would be expected to perform against the same schedule.

That .936 number Ford has next to Texas says that the 12th-best team in the nation would have .936 fewer wins against Texas’ record than the Longhorns do.

One of the problems with the discourse around Texas is that they are still being seen as that No. 1 overall team, top-tier championship contender. Brand bias is actually doing reverse damage. That’s not how the committee should rank.

If you don’t think of Texas as ‘The University of Texas’, and just a team, with a resume, it really doesn’t look that bad.

Ohio State is far and away the best team in Ford’s ratings, and Texas played within a touchdown on the road. Ford would have around a 12-point spread between Ohio State at home and the No. 12 team in his ratings, which so happens to be Texas. They overperformed in Columbus.

They also overperformed in Dallas. Oklahoma is a top-14 team on a neutral field. That spread would probably favor the No. 12 team by 2 points. Texas won by 17.

Florida on the road would have the No. 12 team favored by roughly 4.5. Texas lost by 8, a 12.5 point swing, but Texas is still overperforming by about 7.5 points in their three biggest games.

The problem is that they’ve played down to some of their other competition, and that’s not the way you actually view Texas in real life. Clearly, Steve Sarkisian’s team should be beating Florida, home or on the road. The spread was far more than 4.5, and Texas still lost.

But if you truly look objectively, the Longhorns have a good resume, a top-15 one.

If they beat No. 17 power-rated, No. 9-ranked Vanderbilt this weekend, they will probably jump Texas Tech, Michigan, and Notre Dame and end up clawing for a top-10 spot. They might leapfrog Vandy as well.

These points are moot if they lose this weekend. Of course,

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