What Texas' loss in the SEC title game means

After losing to Georgia in Saturday’s exciting SEC championship game, Texas football must take the long road to a national championship.

The Longhorns are 11-2 and are safely in the College Football Playoff field. But they won’t earn a first-round bye; These will be awarded to the four best-placed conference champions.

Regardless of where it lands in the final CFP rankings, the highest seed Texas can achieve in the playoff round is fifth. Seeds five through eight will host a first-round game on Dec. 20 or 21, while seeds nine through 12 will play away.

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So will Texas play a home game at Royal-Memorial Stadium in two weeks?

The official bracket is expected to be announced Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (CT) on ESPN. First, though, here’s a look at where Texas could end up:

Will Texas football host a first-round College Football Playoff game?

The Longhorns now join a group of at least six teams from last week’s top 15 with two losses each as they wait to see how Penn State and SMU fare in the final Power Four Conference championship games Saturday night . One of those two-loss teams, Georgia, has a bye.

Three of those two-loss teams did not play in their respective conference title games: Ohio State (No. 6), Tennessee (No. 7) and Miami (No. 12). The other — Arizona State — won the Big 12 championship game on Saturday as the 15th team in the country. However, with the Sun Devils sitting five spots behind Boise State, another conference champion, it is unlikely that they will earn the bye and overtake Texas in the seeding.

Ohio State and Tennessee are two of the biggest questions. How will the committee compare these teams to teams like Texas, which earned another win and suffered its second loss in the SEC Championship Game? Well, it’s unclear. On a call last week, reporters made several attempts to pin down committee chairman Warde Manuel on the matter, but with little success.

“Listen, the committee is made up of coaches, athletic directors and former players who played the game,” Manuel said. “We have a lot of respect for the teams that make their championship games and we give them a lot of credit for what they have done all season.”

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“But we have been asked by the commissioners to place the top 25 by the end of the championship weekend and so we are required to take a look at those data points and the results of those games to determine the final top ranking.”25 , and that’s what they asked of us from the start and that’s what we’ll do this weekend when all the games are played.”

A long list of things would have to happen for Texas, which began the week ranked No. 2, to fall out of host territory.

Starting from the No. 5 seed and working down to get to No. 9 (the first road berth), Texas would likely have to meet four of the six following conditions:

Get ranked below Penn State’s loser against Oregon
Be ranked below the idle Notre Dame
Ranked below idle Ohio State
Be ranked below idle Tennessee
Be ranked under idle Indiana with a loss

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What Texas’ loss in the SEC title game means

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