The Texas Longhorns have a bigger game in Week 6 than most realize. Facing the 1-3 Florida Gators looks to be a walkover on paper but the trap game potential means more to the SEC as a whole.
With the expanded College Football Playoff and the change to straight seeding the 12 participants, the SEC wants to maximize how many of its members will be playing in the tournament. That's where balancing dominance and parity will be difficult in the conference standings.
Florida clearly isn't postseason bound, at least for the CFP. If Texas were to lose to the Gators, though, that could seriously hamper the strength of not only their own record but of the conference overall. The ripple effects could then be maddening for not just Texas fans, but for SEC fans at large.
For example, losing to now-No. 1 Ohio State in Week 1 is a good loss considering the Buckeyes are defending national champions and continue to dominate. That increases Texas' strength of record even with the loss. But add Florida to that column and suddenly Texas becomes less attractive in the eyes of the selection committee, and so does anyone that plays the Longhorns going forward.
Arch Manning is carrying the SEC's most important CFP metric on his shoulder
Naturally, the pressure to continue winning and looking good while doing it falls on Texas quarterback Arch Manning. He's had a relatively rough going of his first year as a starter, but thankfully for him there's still a lot of grass ahead of him to pick up speed.
Through four games and exiting the team's Week 5 bye, Manning has thrown for 888 yards, nine touchdowns and three picks. His 56.4 QBR ranks 74th in the nation, far from the Heisman Trophy frontrunner status he was expected to have entering the season. What's worse is that his subpar outings didn't subside with the loss to the Buckeyes, but were there against UTEP and even San Jose State as well.
That cumulative performance already has knocked the Longhorns down from their season-opening No. 1 position to now a No. 9 ranking. They won't have a better loss than Ohio State the rest of the year so they'll need to be perfect in order to keep from dragging the rest of the SEC down. A loss to Florida would certainly plummet the SEC's stock.
So, all Manning has to do is take care of business on Saturday against the Gators. Limiting mistakes and finding the end zone more than twice should do the trick.