The 2025 SEC football season promises chaos, with no consensus favorite emerging among analysts. Last year’s introduction of the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff only emphasized how demanding the championship path has become.
Despite roster turnover from NFL departures, Texas leads multiple SEC power rankings — including those by CBS Sports and ESPN’s Football Power Index. Quarterback Arch Manning headlines a reloaded Longhorns squad featuring emerging stars like receiver Ryan Wingo and defenders Anthony Hill Jr. and Michael Taaffe.
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Texas enters the 2025 season as the projected frontrunner in the SEC, drawing praise from analysts such as Cole Cubelic following a strong 2024 campaign that included a College Football Playoff semifinal appearance and a trip to the SEC title game.
On The Paul Finebaum Show, Cubelic made his stance clear:
“I would probably put Texas at the top of the list right now,” he said. “I think that if you went talent-for-talent, guy-for-guy top to bottom, there’s no one who’s clearly gonna be ahead of them.”
Led by head coach Steve Sarkisian, now entering his fifth season, Texas is preparing to start Manning at quarterback.
Manning, the former No. 1 overall recruit in the 2023 class, saw limited action last year when Quinn Ewers went down, offering flashes of his high ceiling. Manning, the nephew of Peyton and Eli, now steps into the full-time role with heightened expectations.
Cubelic highlighted Texas’s depth and balance on both sides of the ball.
“You have a quarterback that we’ve seen play some and done some special things,” he said. “You have a big-time wide receiver room… They will have the best collective group of pass rushers in the Southeastern Conference, maybe in the nation.”
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The Longhorns also added transfer talent, including former Stanford wideout Emmett Mosley, giving Manning additional weapons. Despite key losses along the offensive line, Cubelic believes the roster is elite, but noted.
“I do want to see the interior of that defensive line and I want to see how Kyle Flood handles some big losses on the offensive line.”
With uncertainty surrounding traditional powers like Georgia, Alabama, and LSU, Texas appears poised to capitalize, though as Cubelic warned, they’ll still need to prove it on the field.
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