The 2025 college football season ends Jan. 19 when Miami faces Indiana. But the season is over for the 13 FBS programs inside the state of Texas. It was a great year that fizzled a bit at the end with North Texas and SMU tripping up late and Texas Tech and Texas A&M combining for three points in two College Football Playoff appearances. 

The highlight is that as many as five teams could end the year ranked, which would break the previous record of three. Those five teams – Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Texas, Houston, and North Texas – all finished with 10 or more wins. Ten of the 13 FBS programs in the Lone Star State played in a bowl game with only Baylor, UTEP, and Sam Houston missing out on the postseason.  

With the season now behind us, let’s grade each team, starting with the seven programs in the Power Four. We’ll release grades on the six G5 teams on Wednesday afternoon. 

Texas Longhorns 

The Horns started 2025 with national championship aspirations and ended it in the Citrus Bowl. It was an odd year on the Forty Acres. The Longhorns went from No. 1 in the preseason to unranked by mid-October after falling to Florida on the road and looking underwhelming in non-conference wins over UTEP and San Jose State. Later in the year, they lost by 25 points to Georgia and needed comebacks to beat Kentucky and Mississippi State. 

Conversely, wins over Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, and Texas A&M gave the Longhorns an argument to become the first three-loss team to reach the CFP. Texas was one of the 10-best teams in America by the end of the year, but the bumps along the way were hard to ignore, especially given the expectations.

Grade: B-

Texas A&M Aggies 

The two-game losing streak to end the season might leave a lingering sour taste and provide rivals an opportunity to denigrate the 2025 campaign for Mike Elko & Co., but it is hard to deny that this season should be viewed as the turning point for Aggie football. Texas A&M won 11 straight to start the season, including on the road at Notre Dame in Week 2. They beat LSU in Baton Rouge for the first time in decades and reached the CFP for the first time in school history. This was the best season for the Aggies since at least the early 1990s.

The 11-win season marks only the second time the programs won 10 or more games this century. Texas A&M will finish ranked in the Top 10 for the first time since 2012 if we throw out the 2020 pandemic-season. The offense ranked 19th in scoring as QB Marcel Reed emerged as a Heisman contender and wide receiver K.C. Concepcion and Mario Craver improved the passing offense. And while that offense only managed three points in a home loss to Miami in the first round of the CFP, the Aggies provided proof of concept in Year 2 under Elko. 

Grade: A-

Baylor Bears 

The Bears entered 2025 as a popular dark horse pick to win the Big 12. They exited with the third losing season in the last four years and the fourth in six campaigns under Dave Aranda. The Sawyer Robertson led offense was solid, averaging 31.1 points per game and ranking 34th in the FBS in scoring as TE Michael Trigg became a star. But the defense, which was coordinated by Aranda, was a miserable failure. Baylor was 122ndnationally in scoring defense while allowing 32.6 points per game. In losses, that number ballooned to 39.3 points per game. The Bears lost five of their last six and missed a bowl game for the second time in the last three seasons. 

Grade: F

Houston Cougars 

Remember, expectations help determine perceived success. A 10-win season for Texas and even Texas A&M are not graded the same as a 10-win season for Houston. The Longhorns were in the CFP the last two seasons and entered 2025 ranked No. 1 in the nation. The Aggies are as well funded as any roster in America and ended the year with consecutive losses on the national stage. The Coogs, on the hand, were coming off two four-win seasons and were 5-13 against the Big 12 since joining the conference in 2023. 

Houston had two new coordinators, dozens of new faces in the transfer portal, including QB Conner Weigman, and lost its two best players – safety A.J. Haulcy and cornerback Jeremiah Wilson – to the transfer portal moments after the spring game ended. The Coogs projected team total entering the year was 6.5. They hit the over by Oct. 24 and closed the year with a win over LSU in a bowl game. 

Grade: A

TCU Horned Frogs 

The Frogs secured their second consecutive nine-win season with a thrilling overtime victory over USC in the Alamo Bowl. Head coach Sonny Dykes is now 36-17 with a trip to the national championship game and a CFP win – something only Sarkisian has done inside the state – in four seasons at TCU. The Horned Frogs were a combined 23-24 in the four seasons before he arrived. 

They could’ve won 10 games in the regular season and threatened for a Big 12 championship if not for three-point losses to Arizona State and Iowa State. The ceiling was higher than a 5-4 mark in Big 12 play and that understandably frustrated TCU fans and forced some changes after the year, but it was a solid season in Funky Town. 

Grade: B

Texas Tech Red Raiders 

Red Raider Nation went all-in ahead of 2025 and that bet cashed with a Big 12 conference championship – the first outright conference championship for the program since the 1950s – and a trip to the Orange Bowl for a quarterfinal game in the CFP. Tech was dominant in the regular season outside of a speed bump on the road against Arizona State with their backup quarterback. Tech was seventh in scoring offense under Mack Leftwich and third in scoring defense under Shiel Wood. Most of the transfer portal investments also hit, most notably along the defensive line with David Bailey and Lee Hunter starring. 

The season ended in disappointment following the shutout loss to Oregon in South Florida on Jan. 1, but the 12-win season made a clear statement of intent, and competence, for West Texas. This was not a one-hit wonder. The Red Raiders are the new top dogs in the Big 12 and will be in CFP contention from here on out. 

Grade: A+

SMU Mustangs 

Two non-conference losses to in-state Big 12 foes – TCU and Baylor – kept the hype down for SMU heading into ACC play, but a win over Miami and the train wreck that was the ACC regular season, put the Ponies in the driver’s seat for one of the spots in the championship game in the last game of the season. Unfortunately for Rhett Lashlee’s group, Cal won at home and prevented the Mustangs from playing in a conference championship game for the third straight year. Still, SMU is 14-2 in the ACC regular season with wins over Miami, Clemson, and Florida State over the first two years in the conference. That’s nothing to sneeze at. 

Grade: B-