Warde Manuel addresses how College Football Playoff committee would view Texas with loss to Texas A&M

If Texas loses to Texas A&M this Saturday, the Longhorns will finish 10-2 and miss out on the SEC title game. And that means waiting to see if there’s an at-large bid to the College Football Playoff field.

Whether or not a 10-2 Texas — a team that’s best win would be at Vanderbilt, but with losses to a pair of ranked teams — makes the field remains to be seen. And CFP selection committee chair Warde Manuel wasn’t going to offer much insight into that decision, should it come to pass.

“Thanks for your question,” Manuel said. “We don’t, I don’t, get into projections. We don’t talk about projections when we get in the room, about the what-ifs, if people lose games then where will it put them. Obviously you can see from the number of losses we had this week, it just depends on what happens. There was a lot to sort out this week with seven of the top 25 losing, two big upsets in the top 10.”

He continued, reiterating his point.

“So we don’t project what will happen,” Manuel said. “We just look at what happens overall amongst the teams this weekend to make our decision over the next two weekends really.”

Three-loss teams are likely to be in play for bids, too

The latest College Football Playoff rankings were unveiled on Tuesday night and a trio of three-loss SEC teams remain within striking distance of the top 12. But there’s work to be done.

Alabama checked in ranked No. 13, Ole Miss No. 14 and South Carolina No. 15.

None of those programs would make the College Football Playoff if the season ended today, but there are still two weeks left to go until the rankings are final and playoff spots are awarded. So on Tuesday night, finding out just how realistic it is for those teams to move up was a key question.

ESPN’s Rece Davis attempted to flesh out the answer when he asked Manuel what the appetite was for a team with more losses to rank ahead of a team with fewer.

“Well I think the appetite is there to rank the teams as we see them, and if a team with one more loss than a team in front of them, and we feel like they should be ahead of them, then we’ve shown that we will do that,” Manuel said.

As is, the trio of Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina already rank ahead of some two-loss teams in the Big 12. Arizona State checked in at No. 16 in the College Football Playoff Rankings, while Iowa State checked in at No. 18 and BYU was ranked at No. 19.

Of course, the more interesting discussion might be what happens if a team like Miami or SMU loses another game to fall into the two-loss mix.

Could a three-loss team jump them, getting ever closer to the all-important top 12 College Football Playoff spots?

“In the past 10 years, in the history of the CFP, there has been 22 teams that have been ranked in the top 12 with three losses,” Manuel said. “So the committee’s never been afraid to rank teams with multiple losses within the top 12 if we see them that way.”