A pair of Texas teams – Texas Tech and Texas A&M – were two of the 12 teams that reached the College Football Playoff. The Lone Star State has sent five different programs to the CFP since 2022. The only two that haven’t made it are Houston, which became a Power Four program in 2023, and Baylor, who would’ve made a 12-team field in 2021 after winning the Big 12 in Year 2 of the Dave Aranda era. 

Texas Tech is the four-seed and will be one of the teams receiving a bye to the quarterfinals. The Red Raiders will face the winner of Oregon and James Madison in the Orange Bowl. Texas Tech finished the regular season 12-1 and won the Big 12 championship for the first time. It was the first outright conference championship for the Red Raiders since the 1950s. They won every game that starting quarterback Behren Morton played in by three scores or more. Joey McGuire won a state championship as a high school head coach in Year 4 at Cedar Hill and he hopes to add a national championship in Year 4 as a collegiate head coach at Texas Tech. 

Texas A&M is the seven-seed and will host one of the four first round playoff games. The Aggies will play Miami, who snuck into the field by jumping Notre Dame after sitting behind them for every ranking before Sunday. Miami is 10-2 on the season and have also beaten the Fighting Irish like A&M did. The Hurricanes two losses came in ACC play to Louisville and in overtime to SMU. The winner will face two-seed Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. 

Texas A&M was 11-1 in 2025 and just outside the SEC Championship game. The lone blemish for the Aggies was in the regular season finale, a road loss to rival Texas. Mike Elko, in Year 2 as the head coach in Aggieland, led his group to a non-conference win over Notre Dame early in the season and started the year 11-0 to guarantee a spot in the playoff for the first time in school history.  

Indiana is the top overall seed and is headed to the Rose Bowl. The Hoosiers will face the winner of Oklahoma and Alabama. Georgia is the two-seed and is playing in the Sugar Bowl against the winner of Ole Miss and Tulane.