Texas Longhorns' Opener vs. Ohio State Meaningless in CFP Race?

During an appearance on "The Herd with Colin Cowherd," Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt argued that the result of the Texas-Ohio State game won't matter when the CFP selection committee meets to decide the teams in December. He used that point as part of a larger argument that Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns aren't under as much pressure as it might seem due to how far they've come over the past few years.

“They know that Sark can do it,” Klatt said. “He’s recruiting at a high level year in and year out. And I think there’s this idea with Texas, like, ‘Yes, we want to win. Yes, we want to go to the national championship. Yes, we want to beat Ohio State. But we understand that we have it better than we did.’

“So there’s some level of relaxed expectation because of that. Plus you throw on top of all of that discussion that the playoff is not going to care who wins that game. That’ll be determined through the regular season and conference play and getting into the playoff. We’ll look at that game more for seeding purposes than we will access purposes.”

To Klatt's point there are plenty of cases of teams losing big early-season games and going on to make the CFP. Many of those occured in the four-team era, and there's even more leeway now that the CFP has expanded to 12 teams. If we're being honest, both Texas and Ohio State could probably afofrd two regular season losses and still make it to the CFP quite comfortably.

Is the game meaningless, though? No.

Regardless of the playoff implications, or lack thereof, this game still serves as an opportunity for both team's to make a statement early on, especially the Longhorns given their loss in the semifinals. There's also nothing like a big non-conference matchup to get the entire college football world hyped for the upcoming season.

So while it may not hold quite as much weight as it would have before, this game is still very important for both teams and the sport as a whole.