Category: Texas Football

Texas has dominated their record at home in each season since 2000

It is a tough place to play.

Playing football at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium can be a daunting task, especially for visiting teams. Since the year 2000, Texas is 112-33 at home.

Recently, EA Sports ranked Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium as the No. 19 toughest place to play in college football. Once upon a time, especially in the 2000 to 2009 era of Longhorns football, it was among the toughest venues to play a game if you were a visitor.

Texas was a combined 56-4 during that decade. They averaged 43 points per game and only gave up an average of 14.8 points.

Here is a look at the home record by year since the turn of the century for the Texas Longhorns at DKR.

Texas Longhorns home record by year

Year Record Avg Points Scored Avg Points Allowed
2000 6-0 46.5 10.0
2001 5-0 45.4 7.0
2002 6-0 32.8 9.3
2003 5-1 42.5 21.7
2004 6-0 42.3 15.8
2005 5-0 54.2 12.2
2006 5-2 37.4 14.4
2007 5-1 36.8 24.8
2008 7-0 47.7 16.4
2009 6-0 46.8 14.7
2010 2-5 24.7 24.7
2011 4-2 30.8 16.7
2012 4-2 43.2 23.7
2013 4-2 33.2 23.2
2014 3-3 23.8 30.8
2015 3-3 40.0 30.0
2016 4-2 30.3 24.8
2017 4-2 35.3 25.3
2018 5-1 30.7 20.0
2019 5-1 40.8 30.8
2020 3-2 30.8 17.6
2021 4-2 44.7 26.5
2022 5-2 31.7 19.3
2023 6-0 38.8 12.8
Total 112-33 37.6 19.8

Only once during this stretch did the Texas defense give up more points than the offense could score, it was during the forgettable 2014 campaign under first-year head coach Charlie Strong.

Last season the Longhorns defense gave up just 12.8 points per game at home, the lowest number since the 2005 national championship team. That season they surrendered just 12.2 points per game, but scored a blistering 54.2 points per game.

For the better part of two-plus decades, Texas has averaged a scoring margin of 17.8. During the first decade of the 2000s, that margin was a massive 28.7 points per game.

EA Sports ranks Texas among the 25 toughest places to play

Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium ranked as one of the toughest places to play in CFB.

The college football season is just over two months away, but for the first time in over a decade, college football fans will have a video game to hold them over for the time being. EA Sports ‘College Football 25’ is set to release on July 19 with a brand new set of features and a massive upgrade in graphics.

Among the new details coming to the game, one of the coolest features is going to be the inclusion of home-field advantage. EA Sports’ ranked the Top 25 toughest places to play in the new game, and unfortunately, Kyle Field and the Texas A&M Aggies come in at the No. 1 spot.

Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium cracks onto the list at No. 19. The Texas Longhorns have won seven straight home games dating back to the 2022 season when they lost to the eventual national champion runner-up, TCU Horned Frogs 17-10.

Texas-Memorial Stadium will have a few chances to rise in the rankings this year as the Longhorns are set to host both the Georgia Bulldogs and Florida Gators.

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A pair of Longhorns DB’s named to the Lott IMPACT Trophy Watch List

Texas DB’s Jahdae Barron and Andrew Mubuka named to Lott IMPACT Trophy Watch List

Every year since 2004, the Lott Trophy has been awarded annually to the nation’s defensive IMPACT player of the year. While the award does revolve around on-the-field performances, much more is factored into it as IMPACT stands for “Integrity, Maturity, Performance, Academics, Community, and Tenacity.”

The list of former winners is quite remarkable with the likes of DeMeco Ryans, J.J. Watt, Luke Keuchly, and Manti Te’o headlining the group. Michigan’s Junior Colson was the 2023 Trophy winner with Aidan Hutchinson and Will Anderson Jr. having taken home the award in the two previous years.

Heading into the 2024 season, a pair of Texas Longhorns find themselves on the Lott Trophy watch list in cornerback Jahdae Barron and safety Andrew Mukuba.

Barron is entering his fifth year with the Texas program and recorded 59 total tackles a season ago with one interception and five passes defended. Mukuba on the other hand enters his first year on the Forty Acres after transferring from Clemson this offseason.

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Texas Longhorns QB Quinn Ewers among the favorites to win the 2024 Heisman Trophy

Texas’s Quinn Ewers looks to become fourth straight QB to win the Heisman Trophy in 2024

Heading into the 2024 college football season, the race for the Heisman Trophy will be as wide-open as it’s ever been. With no returning winners and the top five vote-getters from last year all going to the NFL, there is no clear front-runner.

The award has become increasingly more of a quarterback award with seven of the eight last winners being signal callers. Winning the award has turned out to be a great sign as the last three winners have gone on to realize a ton of success in the NFL draft with Bryce Young being drafted No. 1 overall in 2023, Caleb Williams No. 1 overall in 2024, and Jayden Daniels No. 2 overall in 2024.

After guiding the Texas Longhorns to a Big 12 title and Playoff appearance in 2023, the expectations will be sky-high for QB Quinn Ewers. On3’s Jesse Simonton ranks Ewers No. 2 in his Top 10 Heisman Trophy candidates for 2024 behind only Georgia’s Carson Beck. Simonton says of the Longhorns QB1:

“Ewers has yet to truly live up to his No. 1 overall prospect billing but perhaps that comes to fruition this fall. The Longhorns’ third-year starter has been at his best in big games (see: Alabama, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State last season) and Ewers will have plenty of chances to play in the spotlight against a schedule that includes Michigan, Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas A&M.

He threw for 3,500 yards last season, and although he’s working with a whole new cast of wideouts, Texas has another loaded receiver room this fall. If Ewers plays with more consistency and continues to lead a Texas team back into a national title contender, then he’ll be a Top 5 candidate — not just in the SEC but for the whole field.”

If Ewers is able to bring home the award this fall, he would become the third Longhorn to ever do it with Ricky Williams being the last winner in 1998.

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Longhorns TE Amari Niblack set for massive breakout season

PFF analyst thinks Amari Niblack could be the breakout TE in CFB in 2024

After spending the first two years of his collegiate career with the Alabama Crimson Tide, tight end Amari Niblack has found a new home on the Forty Acres with the Texas Longhorns.

Niblack announced his intentions to leave Alabama and enter the transfer portal shortly after the legendary Nick Saban’s retirement in January. It was a massive blow for the Crimson Tide as he was expected to have a huge role in Tuscaloosa in 2024, but instead, the Longhorns now have a top-10 tight end in college football.

Coming out of high school, Niblack was a five-star recruit and the No. 89 overall-ranked player in the 2022 recruiting class. Through two years with Alabama, Niblack had 21 career receptions for 342 yards and five touchdowns.

The Longhorns have tapped into the Alabama pipeline since Steve Sarkisian’s move three years ago and snagging several high-quality players such as Isaiah Bond and Jahleel Billingsley.

However, Niblack will likely be the largest contributor of any of those former Alabama players. He will be a day-one starter for the Longhorns and will have the difficult task of filling the shoes of Ja’Tavion Sanders who already departed for the NFL.

PFF analyst Dalton Wasserman believes that Niblack will be the breakout tight end in college football this year. With Sark’s style of offense combined with a first-round talent at QB like Quinn Ewers, it’s easy to see why so many people are so high on the Longhorns’ new addition.

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Texas HC Steve Sarkisian shares what he learned under legendary coaches

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian details the biggest things he learned from Nick Saban and Pete Carroll.

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian has grown to become a fantastic coach in his own right, but the path to get here was certainly anything but linear.

Sarkisian started his coaching career with the USC Trojans as a quarterback coach under Pete Carroll before taking on the same role with the Oakland Raiders under Norv Turner. His stint in the NFL was successful, but after one year he decided to rejoin Carroll at USC as the associate head coach.

Finally, in 2009 Sarkisian got his first chance to become a head coach as he took over a Washington Huskies program that finished 0-12 the year prior. Sarkisian went 34-29 with the Huskies over five years before eventually returning to USC again to take over as the head coach.

In the midst of his second year in LA, Sarkisian and the Trojans parted ways due to some off-the-field concerns. Sarkisian returned to the sport a year later with Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide as an offensive coordinator where he was an instrumental part in the Tide’s Playoff run. After another one-year NFL stint with the Falcons and two years with Saban, Sarkisian finally got his chance to be a head coach again.

Sarkisian has made the most of his new opportunity as he has guided the Longhorns to a 25-14 record over the past three years including a College Football Playoff appearance in 2023. Getting back to the top of the mountain has been nearly a decade in the making for Sark, but he will be the first to admit that the trials and tribulations he experienced are what got him back to being a successful head coach.

In an appearance on the ‘Joel Klatt Podcast’, Sarkisian named Nick Saban, Pete Carroll, and Bill Belichick as the three greatest coaches football has ever seen and what he was able to take away from them.

While Saban and Carroll have polar opposite coaching styles, they were both as successful as you can be in the sport, mainly because they were authentically themselves. Sarkisian said of the experiences, “I feel like I’ve been fortunate to work for two amazing men in our sport that have been tremendous, and the life lessons I learned from them well beyond football.”

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One historic Texas team among the most influential in CFB history

Where does the 1968 Wishbone offense Texas team rank compared to the other most influential teams of all-time?

Baseball may have a reputation as America’s pastime, but football is king in this country. Rutgers and New Jersey, now known as Princeton, played the first recorded collegiate football game on Nov. 6, 1869, and over the following 150+ years, the sport has rapidly changed.

In recent years, we have seen some monumental changes to the sport such as Name, Image, and Likeness, the introduction and expansion of the playoff system and now we are trending towards super conferences.

However, some of the most impactful changes that have ever come to the sport happened decades ago and are a huge reason football is what it is today. For example, from the cultural influence of the Miami Hurricanes of the 80s to the introduction of the Air Raid attack by Hal Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan in 1991 the sport has evolved in many different ways.

It’s difficult to quantify which of those teams over the sport’s 150+ year history has impacted football the most, but ESPN ranked the top 30 teams (subscription required) that stood out above the rest.

There are several teams with a strong case for the top spot, but no team has impacted college football more than Darrell K. Royal’s 1968 Texas Longhorns. Texas started the year 0-1-1, before introducing the Wishbone offense in Week 3 as the Horns rattled off nine straight wins to be named Southwest Conference co-champions alongside the Arkansas Razorbacks and eventually beat the Tennessee Vols 36-13 in the Cotton Bowl.

ESPN says of the legendary 1968 Longhorns:

“Having won just 20 games in the three previous seasons, Texas began 1968 with a tie against Houston and a loss to Texas Tech. But backup quarterback James Street looked good in a comeback attempt against Tech; he was named the starter the next week, and Texas wouldn’t lose again until 1971. They rolled through the rest of their 1968 slate, then went a perfect 11-0 in 1969, winning an all-time classic against Arkansas, then confirming a national title with a Cotton Bowl win over Notre Dame.

Because of Texas’ blueblood profile, the Wishbone didn’t have to work its way up from the lower levels of the sport. The other powers immediately understood that it could work for them. Alabama’s Bear Bryant quickly adopted it following the Longhorns’ 1969 success. So, too, did rival Oklahoma. And while the Horns would certainly reap the benefits of this offensive explosion — they enjoyed four top-five finishes from 1968 to 1972, then another top-10 finish before Royal’s retirement in 1976 — Bama and OU would dominate the decade, with five national titles and 16 combined top-five finishes from 1971 to 1980. Never has an innovation caught on so quickly, and for the success it brought both Texas and others, the team that perfected the ‘Bone should be considered the most influential team the sport has seen.”

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Texas is capable of winning the SEC and a national title in 2024

Joel Klatt is buying in when it comes to Texas and their national championship hopes.

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian is entering his fourth year in charge of the program, and the expectations in Austin are higher than they have been in over a decade. The Longhorns are coming off their first-ever College Football Playoffs appearance in 2023, and with the Playoffs expanding to 12 teams, the expectation is to be back competing for a national title.

Despite the expansion, the Longhorns’ path to the post-season may be even more difficult this year as they will have to navigate their transition to the Southeastern Conference. Texas’s year one schedule is brutal, including the defending national champion Michigan Wolverines, the No. 1 ranked pre-season Georgia Bulldogs, and bitter rivals Oklahoma Sooners all in the first seven weeks.

With Quinn Ewers returning for his third season as a starter and one of the top receiving cores in the nation, it is easy to see why many people have Texas as a top-five team in the country. It also doesn’t hurt that the Longhorn’s defense is one of the best in the nation as they were the No. 3 ranked rush defense, the No. 15 scoring defense, and the No. 2 third-down defense.

FOX Sports college football expert Joel Klatt is all in on Sark and the Longhorns in 2024 despite all the changes coming to the Forty Acres this fall. Klatt believes Texas not only can compete for an SEC title, but a national title as well.

“A culture within the building that is vibrant and authentic,” Klatt said of Texas. “I think that the players understand he really cares about them… I could not be more bullish on Texas football right now. In large part because I’ve known Steve (Sarkisian) for a long time. When I sit with him now, I sense something really special.”

Now, with a major target on their back, will the Longhorns be able to rise the challenges again in 2024?

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Texas projected to face SEC squad in College Football Playoff 12-team field

CFB expert projects Texas football to make the first-ever 12-team Playoff and face Ole Miss

The 2024 college football season will introduce many new things, but none more notable than the expansion of the Playoffs from four-teams to 12-teams.

In the revised Playoff system, there will be automatic bids to conference champions which will also come with a first-round bye. Additionally, the first round of Playoff games will be played at the lower seed’s stadium and the neutral site games won’t start until the quarterfinals.

After making the final four-team Playoff in 2023, the Texas Longhorns fully expect to be a part of the first-ever 12-team field. Steve Sarkisian has proven to be one of the three or four best coaches in the sport and quarterback Quinn Ewers returns for his third year as a starter which makes them a serious national title contender.

However, the Longhorns will have their work cut out in 2024 as they transition to the SEC and play one of the most difficult schedules in the country. Texas is slated to play both the Michigan Wolverines and Georgia Bulldogs in the regular season. These two teams are more likely than not to be in the playoffs come December.

CFB expert Andy Staples projected his first 12-team Playoff field and he has the Longhorns qualifying as the No. 7 seed taking on Ole Miss. Assuming they were to beat Ole Miss, Texas would be matched up with No. 2 Georgia in the quarterfinals.

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Texas QB Quinn Ewers ranks as second best passer

Texas’s Quinn Ewers ranked No. 2 QB in the country heading into 2024 season by ESPN CFB expert

With the additions of the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners to the SEC and the expansion to a 12-team College Football Playoff, the 2024 season will be unlike anything we have seen in years past.

With eight more Playoff spots now, teams with two to three losses will be getting into the playoffs and you won’t have to run the table in a loaded SEC to play for a national title.

The move to the SEC could not have come at a better time as the Horns made a CFP appearance for the first time in 2023. Texas will be one of the favorites to compete for an SEC title and national championship in 2024 largely due to quarterback Quinn Ewers.

Six QBs were selected in the top 12 picks of the 2024 NFL draft, so there is a bit of a step down in talent at the position this year. However, for guys like Ewers and Georgia Bulldogs Carson Beck, it’s a great opportunity to become QB1 in the 2025 NFL draft class and potentially win the Heisman Memorial trophy.

Former Alabama quarterback and now ESPN CFB analyst Greg McElroy ranks Ewers as the No. 2 quarterback in the sport heading into the 2024 season behind only Beck. Jalen Milroe of Alabama and Jaxson Dart of Ole Miss were the only other SEC passers on the list.

McElroy said of Ewers, “He looked so much more comfortable last year, and because of the lost weight, I thought he was more athletic. His feet were better. And all of those things helped him to really progress and lead Texas to their first-ever CFP berth.”

Contact/Follow us @LonghornsWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Sam Murphy on Twitter @SamMurphy02.