Texas didn’t just beat Ole Miss on Saturday. It blew the rankings wide open.
A week after sitting at No. 19 and trying to stop its season from sliding off the rails, Texas surged eight spots to No. 11 in Sunday’s AP Top 25 poll after a 34-27 win over then-No. 7 Ole Miss. That was the biggest move of anyone in this week’s rankings, and it came at the perfect time.
The chaos around the Longhorns was just as important as the result itself. Five ranked teams lost to unranked opponents Saturday, and two of those setbacks came from top-10 teams. That kind of turnover sent the poll spinning and gave a few playoff hopefuls a fresh opening.
The biggest jolt came from Orlando, where No. 2 BYU picked up its first loss of the season in stunning fashion.
Coming off a big win over Notre Dame the week before, the Cougars fell 39-31 to UCF in double overtime. Texas Tech also took its first hit of the year, dropping 37-24 at Cincinnati and sliding from No. 8 to No.
The SEC had its own shakeup. No.
11 Tennessee lost 27-24 at South Carolina and fell to No. 16.
Iowa and USC both dropped out of the rankings entirely after losses of their own.
At the top, Miami stayed in the No. 1 spot, while Ohio State moved up to No. 2. Kentucky and Alabama moved into the top 10 at No. 9 and No. 10, respectively.
That left Texas sitting just outside the top 10, a sharp turnaround from where the Longhorns were only a week earlier. Saturday had been framed as a possible third straight loss and the kind of result that could have knocked Texas out of the playoff discussion before November.
Instead, the Longhorns are 5-2 overall and 2-2 in the SEC, and their résumé suddenly looks a lot stronger. They now have three wins over teams ranked in the top 16, including No.
2 Ohio State. The two losses to Oklahoma and Florida still hang over the profile, but in this season’s shifting landscape, a three-loss SEC team still isn’t automatically finished.
The win also keeps Texas in the SEC title mix, though the route to Atlanta is still messy. Even if the Longhorns win out and finish 7-2 in conference play, they are not assured of reaching the championship game. Kentucky and Georgia both have paths to end up with just one SEC loss, which means Texas will need some help elsewhere.
There is at least some leverage in the Longhorns’ favor if the league race tightens up. Their win over Tennessee and the victory over Ole Miss could matter in a tiebreaker scenario. Georgia still has to go to Ole Miss in two weeks, and Kentucky visits Knoxville during that same stretch.
Texas still has a demanding finish, though. Mississippi State looks like the most manageable game left, especially with Bulldogs quarterback Kamario Taylor’s current status in question.
After that comes a trip to Missouri, another game that could end up carrying tiebreaker weight since Kentucky is scheduled to play the Tigers later this season. Then comes LSU in Death Valley.
For now, Texas is back in the national picture. The Longhorns’ playoff hopes are very much alive again - and after the weekend the rankings just endured, that’s no small thing.
In Other News...
Ole Miss Coach Is Still Explaining The Choices Texas Made Hurt
Pete Golding is still unpacking the two decisions that helped swing Ole Miss into a tougher spot against Texas, and both came with the kind of late-game math that coaches spend the rest of the week rethinking. The Rebels head coach said he believed the game was still within reach when he sent out the field goal unit for a 58-yard try, even though the kick carried obvious risk. Texas turned that miss into more breathing room, adding a field goal of its own soon after and keeping control of the game.
Golding also looked back on an earlier fourth-down decision late in the second quarter, saying he regretted passing up a shorter field goal in favor of going for it. For Texas, those are the kinds of moments that can quietly change the shape of a game without a single explosive play involved, especially when an opponent is trying to balance aggressiveness with caution. And for Ole Miss, the lingering frustration is that both calls still invite the same question: what might have happened had the Rebels taken the safer points instead? [Read more 🡒]
Ohio State Holds Firm As AP Poll Chaos Shakes Contenders
Week 8 turned the AP Top 25 into a moving target, and the ripple effects reached deep into the national picture. With nearly a third of the top 10 taking losses, the reshuffling opened the door for teams to climb and forced several contenders to slide, including Texas, which made a notable jump as the Big 12 race and the playoff conversation both kept getting messier.
The ranking churn also underscored how volatile the season has become for the Longhorns peers, with undefeated teams in the conference taking hits and programs like Utah rising as others fell back. Miami even picked up more first-place support after BYU lost, while Wisconsin crashed the rankings after its win over USC, a reminder that one weekend can redraw the board almost completely. [Read more 🡒]
Arch Mannings Parents Had Texas Fans Buzzing During A Huge Night
During Texas 34-27 win over Ole Miss, the focus on the field was only part of the story. Cameras in the stands caught Arch Mannings parents reacting to the action, and that was enough to get Longhorns fans talking during a huge night for the program.
Arch Manning helped fuel the buzz with a touchdown pass and two rushing scores as Texas handled the pressure in a game that carried plenty of weight. Even with the victory in hand, the sideline and the stands kept drawing attention, with fans reading plenty into the family moments that played out during the broadcast. [Read more 🡒]