The college football regular season ends in Week 14 and there is still plenty to play for in the Lone Star State. Five teams are still alive in the College Football Playoff and four of those could play for a conference championship next week with wins over the weekend. In fact, 11 of the 13 FBS teams in Texas could be bowl eligible by midnight on Saturday. 

Here are our questions for the week. 

1. How many Texas programs play for a conference title? 

Four teams in the Lone Star State could play for a conference championship next week. Texas A&M reaches the SEC Championship game for the first time with a win over Texas. Texas Tech is nearly a lock to play for the Big 12 championship. SMU controls its destiny in the ACC and could play for its second straight P4 championship with a win over Cal. And in the G5 ranks, North Texas travels to Tulane to play in the American Conference Championship game with a win over Temple. What a year, huh? 

That means Texas could be represented in four of the five best college football conferences in America and we could be home to 33 percent of the College Football Playoff if all four of those teams win. We’ll at least have two with A&M and Tech basically guaranteed at least an at-large bid with both ranked inside the Top 5 of the latest CFP rankings. There is an outside chance the Great State puts five teams in the CFP if the Longhorns upset the rival Aggies on Black Friday. 

The 2025 season has been a banner year for Texas at the FBS level and below. Five teams are currently in the AP Top 25. Four teams made the FCS playoffs. UTPB is in the second round of the Division II playoffs and a pair of in-state schools – Hardin-Simmons and Trinity – are in the DIII playoffs. Tyler Junior College is also one of the four teams left in the JUCO tournament while Prairie View A&M won its division in the SWAC. We even had a playoff representative in the NAIA field with Texas Wesleyan. 

Texas is the epicenter of college football and it is hard to argue that this isn’t the best year ever inside the state. 

2. Who wins the Lone Star Showdown? 

Texas A&M waltzes into DKR Stadium for the first time since 2010 – the last time the Aggies knocked off the rival Longhorns. Mike Elko’s squad is a 2.5-point favorite and they’ll reach the SEC Championship game and finish the regular season undefeated with a win in Austin. Both offenses hold advantages over the opposing defense, at least on paper. Marcel Reed and the high-powered Aggie passing attack should give the Horns fits. Texas has given up over 30 points to its last four opponents. On the other side of the ball, Arch Manning is hitting his stride and the Aggies have allowed 40-plus points to the two best offenses it saw this year in Notre Dame and Arkansas. 

Expect the Lone Star Showdown to be a high-scoring affair and both teams are motivated to win beyond just the normal rivalry stakes. Conference championships have lost some of their luster with the expanded playoff (ask Oregon in 2024) but that isn’t true in Aggieland. Playing in Atlanta would represent a monumental step forward for the program and clinch a first-round bye in the CFP regardless of result. The committee showed last year that they won’t dock a team for losing in a championship game. A 12-1 Aggie team is the four-seed at worst. 

For Texas, there is an outside shot of reaching the CFP with a 9-3 record. The case for the Horns is simple: They would hold wins over Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt. And two of the three losses would be to playoff teams in Ohio State and Georgia. The road loss to Florida is hard to overlook, as is the margin of victory by Georgia a couple of weeks ago, but the Texas brand is undeniable and never forget that the CFP is about making money, not necessarily granting equal opportunity to the college football world. I wouldn’t want to be the Big 12 runner-up or a team like Miami or Notre Dame if I was up against Texas in a resumé battle. 

3. Can Baylor, Rice, and/or Texas State become bowl eligible? 

Eight of the 13 FBS teams in Texas are bowl eligible entering Week 14. Three more – Baylor, Rice, and Texas State – can reach the six-win mark with a victory on Saturday. Baylor hosts Houston, while Rice travels to South Florida and Texas State hosts South Alabama. The Bears and the Bobcats are both favorites this weekend. Rice isn’t but South Florida’s head coach just agreed to become the next head coach at Arkansas and maybe that provides enough of a distraction for the Owls to pull the upset. If all three win, 11 of the 13 FBS teams in Texas would be bowl eligible, adding to the incredible year inside the borders. The only teams that have no shot at the postseason are Conference USA squads UTEP and Sam Houston. 

Picks Against the Spread

Texas A&M -2.5 over Texas
Houston +2.5 over Baylor
TCU -3.5 over Cincinnati
Army +7.5 over UTSA
Cal +12.5 over SMU 
2025 record: 40-32