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Michigan and Texas are both 9-3. They'd lost OOC road games to Oklahoma and Ohio State respectively. If they had instead hosted cupcakes they'd be 10-2 and possibly playoff bound. 

On one hand, you can say that they had their chances against CFP teams and lost.

OTOH, I'm uncomfortable discouraging games like M/OU and TX/tOSU. 

What say you?

I'd put Texas in the CFP top 4 but it's possible that I'm biased...

No seriously though, if you don't put Texas into the CFP this year, then you're telling the Texas administration to cancel the future games against Ohio State, Michigan, and Notre Dame, and replace them with Georgia State like Ole Miss did.

like I said, "depends on the 2-loss teams and their resumes"

if a few of the highly respected 2-loss teams lose , then Texas has a path

The point being made, is that a 10-2 Texas doesn't "need a path."  10-2 Texas with wins over Top 12 A&M, OU, and Vanderbilt, is a lock for the playoff.  So if Texas had scheduled Georgia State instead of Ohio State, the Horns would be in, even with the loss to Florida.

So... what do you do?  The committee has stated previously they don't want to punish teams for scheduling tough OOC games, and you better believe the TV Network partners would rather see Texas play Ohio State than Georgia State.

But if Texas doesn't get into the playoff this year, then it's a clear message that scheduling tough OOC games, doesn't pay off if you lose.  

It's tough. 

For Texas, they have a couple of really solid wins, but losing to Florida is a bad loss, and one-score wins over Kentucky / MissSt aren't really all that impressive. And yeah, they beat the pants off bad teams like Arkansas, Sam Houston, UTEP, and SJSU, as they should, but they should also have beat the pants off Kentucky and MissSt. I don't fault them for losing on the road in a one-score game to OSU. But have they done enough to overcome the losses? I think so with wins over three teams currently ranked. 

For Michigan, it's harder. The losses are worse. Yeah, there's no loss to a team like Florida, but every loss was a 2(+) score game. And who have they beaten? Their best win will likely be Washington who likely will be 8-4 and unranked after today. They haven't shown they can compete with the CFP field. They've lost by 2(+) scores to every ranked team they've played. 

I agree with utee that the one thing we want to avoid is penalizing a team for scheduling tough. 

But I think that when we look at 3-loss teams, Texas at least has an argument, whereas Michigan doesn't. But it'll ultimately come down to what slots are available. Texas will still likely be an "end of CFP field" team, i.e. 10-12 seed, and you have to ask whether there are teams that have proven themselves more worthy of that spot. Ultimately they're going to need some sort of carnage from a couple teams ahead of them to slide in... 

We don’t yet know their competition.  

Texas is 23rd and Michigan is 22nd. Michigan hasn't been competitive with the three best teams they played. Texas has some good wins but also some rough losses and looked pretty meh in some of their wins. Their rank will rise after this weekend; we'll see how much but probably not far enough that I would feel bad if they were left out.[/list]

This! Good take Sam.

Yeah, for Texas, I agree in general with what y'all are saying on the merits of the season overall, as it stands.  There are plenty of deserving teams, that currently are,, and will be, ranked ahead of Texas.

But the question at hand, the one medina is working to tease out, is-- if Texas doesn't get into the CFP this year with everything playing out exactly as it has, then what reason is there to schedule tough OOC games at all?

I keep bringing up Ole Miss scheduling a home game against Georgia State in their opener, while Texas scheduled an away game @Ohio State.

As poorly as Texas played early in the season, there's no doubt that Texas would have beaten Georgia State.  And there's also no question that a 10-2 Texas with the rest of the results exactly as they are, is getting into the CFP.

So if the committee just looks at the W/L column and eliminates Texas at 3 losses, then they're confirming that there's no benefit to scheduling tough.  It's especially true given how closely Texas played Ohio State on the road in Columbus.  That 7 point differential is by far the closest game anyone has played against Ohio State all season long.