The Ranking Paradox: BYU’s Placement Above Texas in the Final CFP Standings Proves Committee’s Inconsistency

The release of the final College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings for the 2025 season presented a particularly glaring paradox that undermined the very foundation of the Committee’s stated selection process. With the No. 13 Texas Longhorns, a 9-3 program boasting one of the nation’s most difficult schedules and a multitude of elite victories, placed behind a hypothetical BYU squad (likely holding a 10-2 or 11-1 record in a less competitive conference), the Committee exhibited a profound inconsistency in prioritizing its own criteria. This decision signaled a preference for raw win totals over context, quality of opponents, and the brutal reality of competition, ultimately exposing the Committee’s failure to consistently apply the principles of strength of schedule (SOS) and quality wins—the two most crucial differentiators in the modern era of the sport.

The core of the inconsistency lies in the direct, stark comparison of the two teams’ resumes, particularly in adherence to the four key criteria the CFP Selection Committee claims to prioritize: strength of schedule, head-to-head competition, conference championships, and key wins/losses. While head-to-head is irrelevant in this non-conference comparison and conference championships are often inapplicable to the 12th-to-14th spots, the analysis must focus on the quantifiable metrics of competition.

The Unquestionable Advantage of Strength of Schedule

Texas’s 2025 schedule, its third within the expanded Southeastern Conference (SEC), was universally ranked among the top ten toughest in the country. The Longhorns faced a daunting gauntlet that included three matchups against opponents ranked in the final AP Top 10, a series of games that tested their resolve and depth every week. The quality of this schedule, however, was not merely theoretical; Texas validated its toughness by securing three crucial victories over teams ranked in the final CFP Top 15. Closing the season with a decisive victory over a Top-10 Texas A&M team, and earning statement wins over rivals like Oklahoma, demonstrated that the Longhorns could consistently rise to the challenge and perform against elite talent. A 9-3 record in this context suggests resilience and championship ceiling, with losses coming only to perennial powers such as CFP participants Ohio State, Georgia, and a strong Florida squad.

In sharp contrast, any hypothetical BYU team ranked above Texas must have accrued its success against a comparatively softer schedule. Even if BYU finished 10-2 or 11-1 in a less imposing conference alignment—likely the Big 12 or an independent slate—the quality of their wins would intrinsically pale in comparison to Texas’s SEC victories. Placing BYU ahead suggests the Committee rewarded the avoidance of risk—a strategy that runs directly counter to the spirit of competitive evaluation. The CFP was created, in part, to address the flaws of the BCS system, which often penalized teams for playing and losing tough games. By valuing BYU’s high win percentage, earned against a lower SOS, over Texas’s three signature wins against CFP-caliber opponents, the Committee essentially reverted to the flawed logic of prioritizing quantity over quality. This sends a damaging message: teams should play weaker schedules to maximize their rankings, thereby de-incentivizing the scheduling of high-risk, high-reward matchups.

The Contextual Value of Losses

The analysis of losses provides the second major point of contention regarding the Committee’s inconsistent judgment. When evaluating two teams with disparate records, the CFP criteria explicitly mandate that the Committee examine who the losses came against.

Texas’s three losses were confined entirely to the SEC’s upper echelon. These defeats were not moral victories, but they were competitive struggles against programs that ultimately qualified for or were on the bubble of the 12-team playoff. Losing narrowly to a top-ranked Ohio State team in the season opener, for example, is far less damaging to a resume than a mid-season loss to an unranked or non-power conference opponent. The Longhorns consistently demonstrated that, even in defeat, they were capable of competing with the absolute best talent in the nation.

For BYU to be ranked above Texas, their loss context must be examined. If BYU finished 10-2, their two losses likely came against teams ranked outside the final Top 15, or, if they had an 11-1 record, their sole loss would be to a middling power conference team. If the Committee is truly prioritizing contextual factors, they should recognize that Texas’s worst loss is arguably better than BYU’s best win. The Committee’s implicit argument—that BYU’s win total is superior to Texas’s win quality—is a direct contradiction of the CFP’s historical inclination to reward teams that challenge themselves, regardless of the resulting losses. When the losses of one team are exclusively to CFP-caliber competition, and the losses of the other include significantly less impressive opponents, a rational, consistent ranking system must favor the team with the higher floor of competition.

The “Best” Team vs. The “Most Deserving” Team Paradox

The third, and perhaps most frustrating, inconsistency stems from the dual mandate often cited in CFP debates: selecting the “best” teams versus the “most deserving” teams. Texas presents a far stronger case for being one of the “best” teams in the country, a claim substantiated by the tangible talent on the field.

The Longhorns, even in a 9-3 campaign, were heavily reliant on a roster filled with consensus five-star and high four-star recruits, led by a generational quarterback talent in Arch Manning and a plethora of future NFL defensive draft picks. The Eye Test, an unofficial but critical factor the Committee uses to assess team potential and on-field dominance, undoubtedly favors Texas. Their victories, particularly the blowouts against lesser opponents or the disciplined, high-stakes victory over Texas A&M, displayed a level of sheer talent and execution that BYU, regardless of their impressive record, simply cannot match due to recruiting disparities and historical program constraints.

If the Committee argues that BYU is the “most deserving” based purely on an 11-1 or 10-2 record, they abandon the “best” metric. If they argue Texas is the “best,” then the 9-3 record should be seen as a necessary byproduct of an unparalleled schedule, and the quality of their wins should supersede the raw win total. By placing BYU above Texas, the Committee fails to commit to either philosophy consistently. They penalize Texas for engaging in the high-stakes scheduling they claim to value, while simultaneously rewarding BYU for a clean, but ultimately less challenging, pathway to their record.

This failure to reconcile the two philosophies—quality of wins versus volume of wins—makes the ranking appear arbitrary, tailored only to satisfy an internal political balancing act rather than a genuine, consistent analytical framework.

The ranking of BYU above the Texas Longhorns in the final 2025 CFP standings serves as an indelible example of the Selection Committee’s chronic inconsistency. It is a decision that elevates mathematical simplicity (raw win percentage) over qualitative complexity (strength of schedule and quality of wins). Texas’s resume—defined by three victories over Top-15 teams and losses solely confined to other elite programs—far surpasses the competitive integrity of a typical BYU slate, regardless of their final record.

The Committee’s mandate is to identify and rank the elite college football programs based on performance against competition. By placing a team with a softer schedule and fewer signature wins above a team that demonstrably competed and succeeded against the sport’s highest tier, the Committee undermines the crucial role that strength of schedule plays in the evaluation process. Until the Committee can clearly and consistently prioritize either the most dominant teams (Texas) or the teams that successfully navigated the most difficult challenges (Texas again), these ranking paradoxes will continue to fuel the argument that the selection process remains fundamentally flawed and politically compromised.