There's been a lot of talk after the Longhorns victory over Arkansas yesterday that if they can beat Texas A&M, they're a playoff team. Unfortunately for them, they're wrong. Even so, they should probably focus more on beating A&M as Marcel Reed and company are going to come into Austin looking for revenge on Friday.
If, and this is a very big if, the longhorns can miraculously beat the Aggies on Friday, they still would be on the outside looking in for the CFB Playoff. Based on the most recent CFP rankings, I would expect the Longhorns to wind up somewhere in the 15-16 range of Tuesday night's rankings due to the losses from USC and Georgia Tech.
Here's what would need to happen for Texas to definitively make it in the playoffs: BYU to lose, Utah to lose, Miami to lose, Vanderbilt to lose, Michigan to lose, and another loss from either Notre Dame, Alabama, or Oklahoma. Some of these are likely to happen, but not enough.
Texas A&M can put an end to the deluded and dying playoff dreams of Texas
We can make some assumptions since this is a hypothetical, after all. Let's say that Miami loses to Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt loses to Tennessee, and Michigan loses to Ohio State. That would get Texas to around the 12-13 range in the rankings. I don't see Oklahoma losing to LSU, Notre Dame losing to Stanford, Alabama losing to Auburn, Utah losing to Kansas, or BYU losing to UCF.
You can make the argument that Texas' resume at 9-3 would be better than Utah's at 10-2, but Texas would still need to vault up 2 spots. If Alabama were to make the SEC championship game, and get their third loss, they would still likely be in the playoffs, and same situation with BYU. Based on last year, the committee won't penalize a team for making their conference championship game and losing. Look at SMU from last year.
Texas simply has too many things that would need to go their way. They can make all of the arguments that they're better than teams with less losses than them, but at the end of the day, they would still be on the outside looking in.