TEXAS, USA — A tune-up game in 2024? Yeah, right.
It's no secret that many Power football programs like to schedule "cupcakes" early in the season so they can ease their way into the year without worrying about losing. However, a lot of these smaller opponents came to play in Week 1, pushing many of our Texas teams to scramble to escape with narrow victories.
This unsettling sight for many fans across the State of Texas led to quite the shakeup in WFAA's rankings, which are compiled together by three members of WFAA's digital team: Ryan Osborne, Paul Livengood and Zachary Yanes.
We finally got a full sample size from each team in Week 1, so here's how we think they stack up now.
WFAA's Texas Football Rankings for Week 2:
No. 1 Texas Longhorns (1-0)
Zachary Yanes: The Texas Longhorns looked like a top-3 team in the country on Saturday afternoon. Quarterback Quinn Ewers threw for 260 yards and three touchdowns, and highly-touted backup Arch Manning even recorded 95 yards and a score. Defensively, the Longhorns looked nasty -- in the best way possible. Colorado State never had a chance in this game as they were held to just a total of 74 passing yards and 118 on the ground. The Longhorns looked like they hadn't lost a step since the end of last year and may have even gotten better. However, we shall see how real they are next week when they travel to Ann Arbor to face Michigan.
- Paul Livengood - 1
- Ryan Osborne - 1
- Zach Yanes - 1
No. 2 Texas A&M Aggies (0-1)
Paul Livengood: Despite their loss, the other teams on this list didn’t even sniff an opponent the level of No. 7 Notre Dame. At the end of the day, the Aggies would still beat up on these teams, I believe. For now, they are still the second-best team in Texas to me. We’ll see if the weeks to follow change my mind.
- Paul Livengood - 2
- Ryan Osborne - 3
- Zach Yanes - 2
No. 3 TCU Horned Frogs (1-0)
Ryan Osborne: The Horned Frogs scored a go-ahead touchdown with 3:13 left in the game -- and somehow, their 34-27 win wasn't as close as the score indicated. Quarterback Josh Hoover threw for 353 yards on 28-42 passing, and the Frogs got a massive game out of LSU transfer Jack Bech, who caught six passes for 139 yards. Two lost fumbles and 100 yards in penalties kept a probably bad Stanford team in this game. TCU needs to be sharper, but the talent is there.
- Paul Livengood - 3
- Ryan Osborne - 2
- Zach Yanes - 6
No. 4 SMU Mustangs (2-0)
Paul Livengood: I need to get this out. I don’t like the “two-quarterback system.” Not one bit. The Ponies trotted out both Preston Stone and Kevin Jennings, on purpose, and plan to use both QBs regularly moving forward. Jennings didn’t play much in the Nevada game due to how the game played out but starred much more against Houston Christian. SMU’s Week 2 performance, even though it was against an FCS opponent, was much better than Week 1 against Nevada. The margin of victory in Week 2 is what hops them back over Texas State and Texas Tech in my rankings.
- Paul Livengood - 4
- Ryan Osborne - 4
- Zach Yanes - 4
No. 5 UTSA Roadrunners (1-0)
Zachary Yanes: There's good news and bad news here. The good news is Roadrunner fans (me) can feel a bit more confident after watching the performance of quarterback Owen McCown who threw for a whopping 340 yards and three touchdowns. That's great stuff, but why on earth did they only beat Kennesaw State by 12 points? I'll give the Roadrunners the benefit of the doubt and chalk this up to just Week 1 rust, but this game should've been over a lot earlier than it was. I mean it was 21-3 in the second quarter before UTSA stalled out, scoring only 7 points in the second half. Next up, the Roadrunners travel up I-35 to face their bitter "rival" Texas State, who has never beaten UTSA (That was for you, Paul). Also, this was UTSA's first Owl opponent of the season -- three more to go.
- Paul Livengood - 6
- Ryan Osborne - 7
- Zach Yanes - 3
No. 6 Baylor Bears (1-0)
Ryan Osborne: The Big 12 is just weird enough that a Baylor bounce-back season shouldn't be a shock to anyone. The same goes for Baylor's recent up-and-down history. Hey, Dave Aranda can still coach, and while a 45-3 win over Tarleton State tells us just about nothing... there are worse ways to start the season. Baylor probably won't beat Utah on Saturday, but that game will tell us plenty about the Bears.
- Paul Livengood - 7
- Ryan Osborne - 5
- Zach Yanes - 5
No. 7 Texas State Bobcats (1-0)
Paul Livengood: As a Texas State grad, I had the Bobcats listed much higher than my colleagues. Texas State was a 34-point favorite over Lamar. The Bobcats did win, but they got in their own way far too often for my liking. Texas State allowed Lamar to stay around with 16 penalties for 150-plus penalty yards and two turnovers. Head Coach G.J. Kinne also flirted with swapping out reigning Sun Belt Player of the Year Jordan McCloud with R.J. Martinez at quarterback, which I am not a fan of. The next game against UTSA is going to be very telling of how Texas State’s season will go.
- Paul Livengood - 5
- Ryan Osborne - 6
- Zach Yanes - 7
No. 8 Texas Tech Red Raiders (1-0)
Zachary Yanes: They don't show the score in the win column -- but they should, because this game was not the way you want to start the year if you are Texas Tech. ACU, which is not exactly a force in the FCS, gave the Red Raiders all that they could handle on Saturday, forcing overtime after coming back from a 22-7 deficit. This isn't meant to discredit ACU, they came ready to play in a typically hostile Jones AT&T Stadium, but Texas Tech had a near-all-time collapse in the fourth quarter as they were outscored 17-6. And if it weren't for a failed two-point conversion attempt, Texas Tech's season would've been off to a terrible start. I'll give them this: these games typically do a good job of making teams better, so there's that.
- Paul Livengood - 8
- Ryan Osborne - 8
- Zach Yanes - 8
No. 9 North Texas Mean Green (1-0)
Paul Livengood: The Mean Green was the biggest, most pleasant surprise of the week for me. Their game against Sun Belt’s South Alabama was a bit of an offensive shootout, but UNT made plays in all three phases that helped them win the game. TCU transfer QB Chandler Morris threw for over 400 yards and three touchdowns. Damon Ward Jr. caught a majority of that – 12 catches for 230 yards and two touchdowns. UNT had a punt block for a touchdown. Back-to-back three-and-outs to start the third quarter allowed UNT to extend their lead, and the defense stepped up one more time by turning the Jaguars over on downs on final time with just over a minute left.
- Paul Livengood - 9
- Ryan Osborne - 9
- Zach Yanes - 9
No. 10 Sam Houston State Bearkats (1-0)
Ryan Osborne: When Texas teams play each other, it makes this ranking business easy. SHSU took care of Rice, 34-14.
- Paul Livengood - 10
- Ryan Osborne - 10
- Zach Yanes - 10
No. 11 Houston Cougars (0-1)
Paul Livengood: The Cougars almost got shut out at home by UNLV (Cougs scored their only touchdown with one minute left in the game). The Runnin’ Rebels' QB didn’t even throw for 100 yards and UNLV still won by 20. They punted seven times and turned over the ball twice (once for a UNLV touchdown), so that’s all you need to know.
- Paul Livengood - 11
- Ryan Osborne - 11
- Zach Yanes - 11
No. 12 Rice Owls (0-1)
Zachary Yanes: The Owls' 34-14 loss to Sam Houston State was likely the start to a rough season. While Rice gets an FCS opponent next week when they play Texas Southern, I wouldn't hold my breath -- it could be another tumultuous week.
- Paul Livengood - 12
- Ryan Osborne - 12
- Zach Yanes - 12
No. 13 UTEP Miners (0-1)
Ryan Osborne: The Miners gave Nebraska a tune-up game before the Cornhuskers take on Colorado. Which wasn't good news for UTEP, losing 40-7.
- Paul Livengood - 13
- Ryan Osborne - 13
- Zach Yanes - 13
