Warde Manuel discusses if Texas has a ‘fragile’ College Football Playoff resume

Texas sits at No. 5 in the country — good for the No. 6 seed, due to the format — after the initial College Football Playoff rankings from the selection committee. But the Longhorns could be in a tenuous spot.

With a real signature win against a top-shelf team, Texas’ resume seems to be a fair bit of empty calories, as wins over Michigan and Oklahoma, among others, haven’t held up.

But CFP selection committee chair Warde Manuel shared that the group isn’t viewing the Longhorns that way.

“Well, I think Texas has looked good all year in terms of how they have played,” Manuel, the Michigan athletic director, said on a conference call with reporters. “They have won on the road at Michigan and went to Vanderbilt and won. As we’ve seen, Vanderbilt is a very good team this year. Their only loss at home was to No. 3 Georgia.”

To Manuel’s point, Texas has only lost to another Top 5 team and a win over Vanderbilt on the road holds more value than recent history tends to indicate.

And moreover, Manuel said, the committee isn’t really applying judgements about things like fragility. They’re just stacking up how each team has looked as holistically as possible and ranking them as such.

And right now, that has Texas at No. 5.

“We don’t look at it as being fragile or not,” Manuel said. “We are going to judge each week with a clean sheet and approach it, and we look forward to watching how Texas plays as the season progresses.”

ESPN analysts discussed Texas’ resume

Not everybody is convinced Steve Sarkisian‘s team deserves to be slotted so high. ESPN’s Joey Galloway argued against the Longhorns due to their once impressive wins losing value as the season progressed.

“Texas is interesting, to me,” Galloway said. “When you look at their resume and who they’ve played — on the road at Michigan. Michigan, at the time, in AP was No. 10. The other one they have is Oklahoma. At the time, Oklahoma was 18. Depending on how the committee looked at those teams, at the time, aren’t very good football teams right now.”

Both Michigan and Oklahoma have gone on losing streaks since their respective Texas losses, currently holding 5-4 records. Neither appeared in the CFP’s top 25 and unless the season turns around, likely will not. Even Texas’ last win against Vanderbilt is enough to get them an impressive win in Galloway’s eyes.

“So, when you look at Texas’ resume, they lost to Georgia, they beat Vandy in a three-point game,” Galloway said. “I’m not quite sure where Texas deserves to be. They’re sitting a five right now. That seems high with their resume so far.”

Right as that point was finished being made, Rece Davis gave his opinion. He appears to be perfectly fine with where Texas sits and gives them credit for winning in Nashville.

“Maybe but I’m good with Texas at five,” Davis said. “I think it’s deserved… After you play Georgia, you’re banged up. They go to Vanderbilt, they get the win.”

The post Warde Manuel discusses if Texas has a ‘fragile’ College Football Playoff resume appeared first on On3.