Texas ranks No. 21 in AP Poll headed into season

Texas will have some work to do to climb up in the AP Top 25 Poll as they are currently ranked No. 21 in the preseason rankings.

The AP Top 25 Poll has been released and the predominant schools in Texas have made the list with the Houston Cougars receiving some votes.

The poll is led by the usual suspects with Alabama at No. 1, Oklahoma at No. 2, Clemson at No. 3 Ohio State at No. 4 and Georgia at No. 5.

Texas A&M ranks next at No. 6 with TCU receiving 40 votes and the Houston Cougars receiving five.

The AP Poll has been part of the game since Oct. 19, 1936 and the preseason poll started in 1950 when a national group of sports writers and broadcasters voted weekly on ranking the best teams in college football.

FOX College Football took to Twitter to ask if the Crimson Tide will have what it takes to go wire-to-wire as collegiate champions.

They wrote, “Only three teams ranked No. 1 in the Preseason AP Poll have won the National Championship over the last 25 years. Will @AlabamaFTBL do it again this season?”

OU, Texas and Iowa State (No. 9) were the only Big 12 schools to make the preseason ranking.

The Longhorns held a second scrimmage on Aug. 21 and new head coach Steve Sarkisian said he was pleased with how the offense was coming along.

“I thought the offense played pretty well today,” he said. “I thought they did a good job controlling the line of scrimmage. We ran the football well, which in turn I thought the quarterbacks had a nice day. I thought they were efficient with the ball, took advantage of opportunities down the field when they were there, and in the end I thought they kind of controlled the tempo.”

The biggest offseason storyline for the Longhorns is who would start at quarterback and Sarkisian didn’t give any clues as to who the signal-caller would be, opting to refer to quarterbacks Casey Thompson and Hudson Card as a duo.

“I would say they played winning football today, and that’s the standard, right? I mean, they are putting us in a position to win games and they did that,” Sarkisian said.

The Longhorns will look to improve on last season’s 5-3 record when they start the season on Sept. 4 against the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns.