Projected 2020 College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings for Week 13

A combination of injuries and positive COVID-19 cases on the Kansas roster forced the Jayhawks to move their Week 12 game against Texas to December 12. That left the Longhorns sidelined without any chance to make their case for the College Football Playoff selection committee as they deliberated for the first time this season.

Ranked No. 22 in the AP Top 25 and No. 23 in the Coaches Poll, expect Tom Herman’s team to land somewhere similar in the first committee rankings. Sam Ehlinger has largely carried the Texas offense this year, accounting for 25.4 of the Longhorns’ 40.4 points per game. Only a handful of quarterbacks have thrown for more than Ehlinger’s 22 touchdown passes this year, and the veteran passer also leads the team in rushing.

Is that sustainable? We will find out over the final three weeks of the season. Texas plays their final home game of 2020 on Black Friday against Iowa State, a game with major ramifications in the Big 12 race. They wrap up the year with back-to-back road games at Kansas State and Kansas over the first two weekends of December. If they win out, a spot in the conference championship game is not entirely out of reach.