Texas Longhorns Receive Questionable Ranking in Latest AP Poll

The Texas Longhorns picked up one of the best wins of the college football season with a 27-17 victory over the Texas A&M Aggies in Austin on Friday.

No. 16 Texas handed No. 3 Texas A&M its first and only loss of the regular season while knocking the Aggies out of SEC Championship contention in the process.

However, the AP Poll doesn't seem to be putting as much stock into the result for Texas as some might expect.

AP Poll Undervaluing Texas Longhorns' Big Win

Texas Longhorns running back Quintrevion Wisner runs for yards past Texas A&M Aggies safety Dalton Brooks during the second half at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium | Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

While not currently as relevant given the presence of the College Football Playoff rankings, the AP Poll still holds some historical value, though the voters certainly aren't helping out the poll's relevance much with a questionable placement of the Longhorns.

Texas rose up two spots from No. 16 to No. 14 despite giving the No. 3 team in the country its first loss of the year.

That certainly seems like something that's worthy of moving up more than two spots and closer to the Top 10, but nonetheless. Instead, Texas stayed behind No. 11 BYU, No. 12 Miami and No. 13 Vanderbilt.

Sure, all of those teams picked up convincing wins on Saturday, with Vanderbilt beating Tennessee (ranked No. 18 in the AP Poll before the weekend), in a 45-24 finish, but Texas' head-to-head win over the Commodores should be reason enough to at least have the Longhorns at No. 13.

Is all of this a moot point with the CFP rankings present? To an extent. But the historical rankings still hold some value and should be criticized as such.

The focus for the Longhorns of course remains on if they will make it into the final CFP bracket on Selection Sunday. Multiple Texas players were asked about this after beating Texas A&M, and it's clear what the Longhorns think.

"From my perspective, it's like, I don't think anyone else has three Top-10 wins in the country, and it hasn't happened since 2019 and (Texas A&M) is the number No. 3 team in the country," Texas defensive end Ethan Burke said. "So what are we talking about? If that's the case, no one else has played this schedule and beat three top 10 teams."

"I feel like we've done enough," Texas linebacker Liona Lefau said. "We battered our hearts out playing. Obviously, some games didn't go our way, and we didn't just lay down. We got back up and we kept fighting. And yeah, we played a lot of great teams throughout the season. Some of them didn't end up the way we wanted it to, but we kept fighting and felt like we beat some pretty good teams as well."