Houston’s road to the Big 12 Championship Game didn’t disappear in Utah. It just got a lot messier.
The Cougars took a major hit with the late Saturday loss to the Utes, and that second defeat also made their College Football Playoff hopes much thinner. At this point, the clearest path to the CFP runs through a Big 12 title.
An 11-1 finish likely would have put Houston in strong position to get to Arlington, Texas. At 10-2, the margin for error shrinks fast.
Still, the door is not shut.
No. 18 Houston sits at 3-2 in Big 12 play after five games, and plenty of people will look at that and assume the Cougars are done. But the standings can still break in their favor if they win out and the rest of the league gets chaotic in the right way.
That starts with Houston taking care of its own business. A perfect finish would get the Cougars to 10-2, and in a season full of surprises, that record could still be enough to land them in the conference title game depending on how the matchups shake out.
One reason Houston remains in the mix is its strength of schedule, which is the highest in the Big 12. That matters.
It gives the Cougars an edge in many three-way and four-way tiebreak situations, and several of the conference’s top teams still have to face each other. The only way Houston can keep that outside shot alive, though, is by winning the rest of its games.
A clean path would be unlikely, but it exists. One scenario has Utah running the table while the other major contenders each pick up two losses. That could create a rematch with the Utes in the conference championship game.
There are other combinations that could send Houston back into the mix, too. Arizona beating Texas Tech on the road, followed by Texas Tech beating Oklahoma State on the road, is one route. Another would be Texas Tech beating Arizona while Utah also wins out, which would still keep Houston’s chances alive in the right tiebreak setup.
A different path would have Texas Tech beating Arizona and then losing to Oklahoma State, while Utah beats BYU. In that case, Oklahoma State would need another loss somewhere else, possibly at Iowa State or Kansas State, to create the kind of standings Houston needs.
The bottom line is simple: if there is one team with one loss or fewer and at least three teams with two losses, Houston can still sneak into the championship picture.
That kind of outcome will depend on a lot of moving parts over the next three weeks. Cincinnati’s rise has already made the league more chaotic, and Houston now needs that chaos to keep building. The Cougars’ trip to Arlington is no longer the clean, direct path it once looked like - but it is still on the board.
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The matchup already has some weight attached to it, with Houston sitting at No. 18 and 6-2 overall and Cincinnati at 5-2. There is also a chance the Bearcats arrive with an even stronger profile depending on what happens in their next game, and that kind of movement could influence where this one lands on the TV schedule for a Cougars team still trying to build on its ranking. [Read more 🡒]
Former Houston Cougar Robert Gasser Just Put UH In Rare Company
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What Gasser did on the sports biggest stage also placed him in rare company for a left-handed starter in World Series history, a distinction that underscores how sharp he was against a lineup with no room to breathe. For Houston, it is another reminder that the programs reach shows up in October, and for Milwaukee it only sharpened the focus on where this series could go next. [Read more 🡒]