Texas benefits from outdated tradition in latest College Football Playoff rankings

Mandel pointed out how No. 12 Georgia not only defeated Texas by multiple scores earlier this season, but that the Bulldogs have played a significantly more challenging schedule than the Longhorns this year.

"Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs have already played three current top-10 teams — Alabama (7-2), Texas, and Ole Miss (8-2) — all on the road. And they played a fourth Top 25 team, Clemson (7-2), at a neutral site. The Dawgs are 2-2 in those games, beating Texas and Clemson (34-3) handily, losing a close game at Alabama (41-34) and losing badly at Ole Miss.

Texas, for its part, has played one current Top 25 team — Georgia — which it lost to at home by two touchdowns."

On Saturday, Georgia will be facing another top-ranked opponent in No. 7 Tennessee, while Texas will take on an unranked Arkansas team with a 5-4 record.

Would a win by the Bulldogs this weekend propel them to outrank the Longhorns in the next version of the College Football Playoff Rankings? 

No, probably not.

Is Georgia a better team at this point in the season than Texas? Since it was able to defeat the Longhorns without much trouble, Georgia would like to think so. But the College Football Playoff selection committee and the voters for the other major college football polls clearly don't believe this to be the case.

Aside from the comparisons of schedule strength, Texas also has a lower ranking than Georgia when using ESPN's current strength of record measurement.

According to ESPN, these rankings reflect the "chance that an average Top 25 team would have team's record or better, given the schedule." In the latest version of these rankings, the Bulldogs are No. 3, while the Longhorns are only No. 10.

Essentially, Texas's current spot at No. 3 in the College Football Playoff Rankings is one that certainly seems a bit misleading, and it's one that could result in a team with a better resume, like Georgia, being left on the outside of the final playoff bracket.

The hope was that expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams would help eliminate some of these controversies, but it seems like there is still plenty of potential for multiple schools to be furious with the selection committee at the end of the season.