At least six of the remaining eight teams in the College Football Playoff feel like true title contenders. The Texas Longhorns are one of those six. In fact, the Horns are the betting favorite heading into the quarterfinals. They face Arizona State – one of two teams without a realistic chance of running the table – in the Peach Bowl on Jan. 1 in Atlanta, Ga. 

That’s not to say the Sun Devils can’t beat Texas on New Year’s Day. It’s just that they – and Boise State – lack the quality depth to win three games over 20 days against the nation’s elite. Only programs like Texas, Georgia, Ohio State, and Oregon can do that. Maybe Notre Dame and Penn State, as well. 

But will Texas win its first national title since Vince Young scampered into the Rose Bowl end zone 15 years ago? One of us believes it is possible. The other? Not so much. 

THE CASE FOR TEXAS 

My case for the Texas Longhorns to win the national championship is simple: Who else are you picking? There isn’t a team without flaws in the current college football landscape. The super powers are dead. Teams like Georgia and Ohio State and even Oregon have concerns and questions heading into the quarterfinals. One of Oregon and Ohio State will be eliminated after Jan. 1. So will one of Notre Dame and Georgia. Texas and Penn State can waltz into the semifinals as double-digit favorites in the quarterfinals. Texas is better than Penn State. 

If Texas does knock off Arizona State in the Peach Bowl on Jan. 1, the Longhorns get a pseudo home game in the semis in a trip to the Cotton Bowl against the winner of Ohio State and Oregon. Do you trust the Buckeyes to beat Tennessee, Oregon, AND Texas in three consecutive games? I don’t. Oregon scares me because of the Ducks’ ability to score points in bunches, but homefield advantage could be the difference maker. 

Winning a national championship usually requires three specific ingredients: Experienced quarterback, great offensive line, stout defense. Well, the Longhorns boast the best defense in the country and an offensive line that can bully most defensive fronts. This whole scenario comes down to Quinn Ewers. Can he make game-winning plays against a defense like Ohio State or Oregon or Penn State? He didn’t against Georgia, but the Bulldogs might field the best defensive front Texas will see this year. 

If Texas faces Georgia in the national championship game, I’ll lean towards the Bulldogs. Oregon is the only other team that possesses a bad stylistic matchup for Texas. The field is as wide open as college football has been in decades because of NIL and the transfer portal. Experience plus a solid path to the Jan. 20 national championship game gives me hope that the Horns can lift the trophy at the end of the season. They have the depth to win three more games and the defense to keep them in every matchup imaginable.

The stage won't be too large for the Horns. Steve Sarkisian's squad has won at Michigan and Alabama over the last two seasons. They've played in two conference championship games and knocked off Texas A&M in Kyle Field in one of the crazier environments possible in college football. Does this team have flaws? Of course. But like I mentioned off the top, so does every possible opponent in the 8-team field. 

(Mike Craven)  

THE CASE AGAINST TEXAS 

I’ll admit I might be too close to this one Burnt Orange tree that I’ve written and talked about for five months to see the forest of flawed trees still contending for a National Championship. 

I believe Texas will lose in the College Football Playoff semifinals against either Oregon or Ohio State. The Longhorns are here because they have the country’s best defense and offensive play caller, which is enough to beat all but four teams in the nation. But once they face the elite teams, there’s no amount of X’s and O’s that can hide the lack of Jimmy’s and Joe’s. 

The player development during Steve Sarkisian’s tenure is head and shoulders above his two most recent predecessors, which is why Texas should have staying power. Interior defensive tackles Alfred Collins and Vernon Broughton, along with tight end Gunner Helm, have transitioned from career backups to seamless replacements for departed NFL players. 

Former five-star running back CJ Baxter and Alabama transfer wide receiver Isaiah Bond were supposed to do the same. Except Baxter was lost for the year in fall camp, while Bond has gained just 168 receiving yards since September ended while battling injuries. While receiver Matthew Golden and running back Tre Wisner have elevated their play in response, Texas has fought the entire year with its hand behind its back. Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, whether it be through lingering injury or plain inconsistency, hasn’t been able to hide it, which is why his NFL Draft stock has slid.

Two things can be true with Ewers: He will finish his college career on the Mount Rushmore of Texas quarterbacks based on career accolades, appearing in two conference championship games and two CFPs with a 26–8 record. He’s also proven to be a quarterback Texas can win with, but not because of. Ewers is a sailor. But his ship has a glob of duct tape on the hull, and he can steer it past a weaker SEC schedule and a three-loss Clemson team when the run game is on fire, but Georgia makes the water too rough. 

This has led to increasing calls for heralded backup quarterback Arch Manning, or at least more packages for him. But Sarkisian is the one who sees them in practice daily, and I personally believe he thinks Ewers can steer a ship with an awesome defense by taking care of the football, while Manning might ram into an interception iceberg trying to be a hero. That makes Ewers the best option for teams Texas is clearly better than (Clemson, Arizona State). But there’s another gear that Ewers hasn’t hit, and that gear is needed to beat one of the nation’s top four teams.

Maybe Ewers elevates in these next few games. Maybe the season’s second-half struggles can be chalked up to the oblique. Sarkisian’s words have backed Ewers as the team’s quarterback all season, but he blinked in that October Georgia game when he yanked Ewers for Manning. He seemingly put the genie back in the bottle when he put Ewers back in for the second half and the rest of the season up to this point. I believe he lost his poker face and showed his hand, that injuries have limited this offense from what it was last year, and the quarterback doesn’t have a Superman cape to put on. 

(Carter Yates)