Texas Longhorns picked to finish 5th in preseason Big 12 poll

Head coach Charlie Strong and the Texas Longhorns will once again struggle to remain in the top half of the Big 12 Conference in 2016, members of the media believe, as the ‘Horns were picked to finish fifth in the preseason poll released on Thursday.

With 151 votes, Texas finished 10 votes ahead of sixth-place Texas Tech and five points behind Baylor, which has been rocked by the recent scandal in Waco and just lost most of its 2016 class, as well as rising back-up quarterback Jarrett Stidham, a former consensus four-star prospect ranked as the No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in the 2015 class, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings.

In all, only 30 votes separated fourth-place Baylor from seventh-place West Virginia, so there may not be much margin between those four teams, which could make for an interesting conference season.

Unsurprisingly, Oklahoma received 24 of 26 first-place votes, with the other two going to second-place TCU.

Here’s the full list:

2016 Big 12 Football Media Preseason Poll

1. Oklahoma (24) 258
2. TCU (2) 222
3. Oklahoma State 202
4. Baylor 156
5. Texas 151
6. Texas Tech 141
7. West Virginia 126
8. Kansas State 88
9. Iowa State 59
10. Kansas 27

first-place votes in parenthesis