CFP Rankings: Houston Climbs to No. 14, Texas Holds No. 6 and Texas Tech Is the First Team Out
The committee's second top 25 puts Georgia first and leaves three Texas schools on three different sides of the line - Texas in at No. 6, Houston three spots up at No. 14, and 8-1 Texas Tech as the first team out despite ranking 12th.
The College Football Playoff selection committee's second rankings of the season, released Tuesday, moved Houston up three places to No. 14 and kept Texas at No. 6, NCAA.com reported. Georgia (8-1) took over the No. 1 spot, followed by Utah (9-0), Alabama (7-2) and UCLA (9-0) in the four bye positions, with Notre Dame (8-1) fifth. Houston, 7-2, climbed from No. 17 after its home win over Cincinnati on Saturday, the Houston Press reported - the Cougars' highest position of the season, with three games left: at Colorado on Friday night, at West Virginia, and a home finale against Baylor.
The Texas table tells three different stories. Texas (7-2) sits sixth and would host a first-round game - No. 11 Kentucky, the last team in - with Alabama waiting in the quarterfinals; the Longhorns play at LSU this week. Texas Tech (8-1) is the hard-luck case: ranked No. 12, the Red Raiders are the first team OUT, because the bracket's twelfth seat goes to the highest-ranked Group of Six team, No. 24 Boise State (8-1), which would travel to Notre Dame. Houston at No. 14 is two places behind Tech and three behind the cut line - close enough that losses above them matter every week, which is exactly the traffic the committee's weekly Tuesday rankings are built to create until the final bracket on Sunday, December 6.
The Big 12's depth is the conference story inside the table. Six Big 12 teams are ranked - Utah at No. 2, BYU at No. 10, Texas Tech at No. 12, Houston at No. 14, Arizona at No. 23 and Oklahoma State at No. 25, BYU Athletics noted - and the league's two losses on Houston's record were both close fights, at Utah and at Texas Tech, CollegeFootballNews noted. The first round is set for December 18-19, with quarterfinals across the Fiesta, Cotton, Rose and Peach bowls around the New Year.
For Houston, the math from here is plain. The Cougars cannot reach the field from No. 14 without help, but the three teams directly in their path - Wake Forest at No. 13, Texas Tech at No. 12 and Kentucky at No. 11 - all have ranked opponents and rivalry weeks ahead, and Houston's own Friday night trip to Boulder is the kind of road game the committee rewards when it is won and punishes when it is not. This station's game file for that trip ran this afternoon (SQ-20261111-040); the next rankings land Tuesday.
