Texas' First College Football Playoff Ranking Will Either Be a Relief or Reality Check

The final push has arrived. The Texas Longhorns have four regular-season games left and are 6-2 with a 3-2 SEC record.

The Longhorns have everything in front of them. The College Football Playoff and SEC title game are still within reach.

On Tuesday, the first CFP rankings will be released. It may only be the first week of November, but these rankings will be important.

Tuesday Will Be a Temperature Check

Tuesday's initial rankings won't be the final determination, but they will be a temperature check for Texas. In the latest AP Poll, the Longhorns are ranked 10th.

Texas is the fourth-highest-ranked team in the SEC. Georgia (2), Kentucky (8), and Alabama (9) are ranked above the Longhorns in the AP Poll. Last year, Texas was left out of the CFP with a 9-3 record. It will likely take a 10-2 record to make the 12-team playoff.

The Longhorns have three top-15 wins (Ohio State, Tennessee, and Ole Miss), but their losses against Florida and Oklahoma are hurting their CFP chances. However, Steve Sarkisian's CFP criteria have stayed consistent. Sarkisian has lobbied for looking beyond a team's record, and that became more important after the SEC expanded its conference schedule.

"Because here we are, last week at the halfway mark of conference play, and every (SEC) team already had a loss. And there are really good teams with multiple losses already, and so what is it really going to look like when there are 9-3 SEC teams compared to 10-2 or even 11-1 teams from other conferences," Sarkisian said. "How much value is going to be placed in that?"

After the Longhorns defeated the Buckeyes, Sarkisian hoped Ohio State would not be penalized for playing Texas if it ended up with a 9-3 record. Hopefully, Sarkisian's team doesn't end up in the same situation as last year.

The Longhorns will face two more ranked opponents (No. 19 Missouri and No. 15 LSU) before rounding out the year with Arkansas and Texas A&M. If Texas wins out, its spot in the CFP is safe. A loss could endanger those odds.

While the CFP rankings will change over the next few weeks, Sarkisian will get an idea of how the committee values his team. Will the committee value three top-15 wins, or will it penalize back-to-back losses against unranked teams? Regardless, Texas has to take care of business before a CFP berth is possible.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/texas as Texas' First College Football Playoff Ranking Will Either Be a Relief or Reality Check.