Texas A&M fans have grown pretty sick of being underrated by the ESPN FPI rankings, a notoriously opaque power rating system put out by ESPN that often has questionable rankings late into the season. One thing in particular, though, was really questionable for nearly the entire season when it comes to these ratings.
After starting the season as a runaway no. 1 in the ratings (4 points higher than current no. 1 Ohio State, and 3 points higher than the no. 2 team), the Texas Longhorns have fallen much more slowly in these ratings than they have in other, comparable power rating profiles. This could be due to a number of things, in all honesty: a greater emphasis on preseason ratings, leaning heavily on talent profile above all else, or some other idiosyncrasy of the formula.
We simply don't know, as ESPN does not release what goes into this rating. After week 11 of college football, though there are still massive amounts of head-scratching placements on this list, the Aggies have finally remedied one by moving ahead of the Longhorns.
Texas A&M finally moves ahead of Texas in FPI, but issues are still all over the place
Texas A&M is now in 7th place in the FPI ratings, while the Longhorns are in 8th. The Aggies have a rating 0.8 points above their rivals at the moment, but there are still some questionable placements of other teams in the ratings overall.
For example, the Aggies are 1.3 points behind the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, despite defeating them earlier this year. It was by a slim margin and thanks in large part to a missed extra point by the Irish, but it was a game on the road and one that the Aggies actually won pretty convincingly, by the stats— averaging a better success rate and yards per play than did the Irish.
In other words, that's a result that screams that A&M is a better team than the Irish, yet Notre Dame is up at fifth. For comparison, the Aggies are ahead of Notre Dame in the SP+ rankings (and are the highest-rated SEC team, as a matter of fact).
There are other issues, such as Alabama and Georgia at 4th and 6th, Penn State sticking around in the top 25, and others. At least this one incorrect piece has been remedied, however.