When Texas announced plans to enter the SEC, the Longhorns immediately embarked on a 5-7 season in 2021 that was historic for all the wrong reasons. Since that moment, Texas has truly brought itself back from the brink and now stands alone as the only SEC team remaining in the first 12-team College Football Playoff.

College football will have consecutive national champions from outside the Sun Belt region for the first time in three decades if Ohio State beats Texas in a playoff semifinal this week.

It took most of the season, but two games into the newly-extended College Football Playoff, the Ohio State Buckeyes look like the team everyone thought they should be this season. The Buckeyes have what is believed to be the most expensive roster in all of football;