No national championship has been won without some struggle.
Texas football has come through the fire and has the look of a team that could win it all. But first Steve Sarkisian’s crew must answer its biggest challenges to date.
Wins over the Oklahoma Sooners and Georgia Bulldogs could give Texas a stranglehold atop the Southeastern Conference and move Sarkisian and his staff one step closer to a league title and one of four coveted first-round byes in the 12-team College Football Playoff.
First up, the Sooners on Saturday in Dallas .
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A momentous meeting
The 120th matchup of the longtime rivals comes 20 years since the Longhorns had a program reckoning, after a fifth straight loss to its fiercest rival.
The current team reminds me of the 2005 national champions that had All-American candidates at several positions — but even that team had to overcome obstacles that stood between its perceived date with championship destiny.
The biggest box that remained unchecked was of the Sooner variety. The 2004 Horns and Sooners met in a battle of top-five 5-0 teams, but Oklahoma had the juice coming in. The Horns had the potential to be a world-beater; first they had to be a Sooner beater.
Coach Mack Brown was a premier recruiter, and the Horns had a three-year streak of 10 wins or more. They were rising, and Mack was sending first-round draft picks to the pros, but they were missing that little something that mattered most against their most hated opponent.
Some of us remember how the Sooners actually led USC 6-0 in the first quarter of the 2003 national championship game in the previous season, before a Trojan blitz led by All-Americans Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush powered a 55-19 punking. The bigger concern was if the Longhorns would ever beat the Sooners again.
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OU had won four straight games in the series from 2000 to 2003 and trucked the Horns by scores of 63-14 in 2000 and 65-13 in 2003, the latter notable because Brown replaced starting quarterback Chance Mock with redshirt freshman Vince Young after a Sooner pick-six.
Many in the media and fan base believed Brown coached timidly when matched up against Bob Stoops and many more in Sooner Nation would have bet their homes on the same concept. Stoops and then-defensive coordinator Brent Venables seemed to have all the answers year in and year out and the ball always seemed to bounce OU’s way.
More hope, another let down
Entering the 2004 meeting, there was a feeling in the 512 that this represented the chance for Texas to finally get over the hump. The Horns were ranked fifth in the national polls and the Sooners were fourth. Young was coming of age, though he was winning more games with his legs than his arm. Cedric Benson was the most productive runner in the country and linebacker Derrick Johnson was the best college defensive player on the planet.
So, the long-suffering fan base took a deep breath and summoned up the quiet belief that Brown had the formula to finally break the drought.
Then the Horns got shut out.
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The 12-0 loss on a rainy afternoon in front of nearly 80,000 was another kick in the trousers. It was the first blanking of a Longhorn team in 24 seasons and just the fifth since 1962. Texas felt close to breaking through but didn’t put together a full game.
Young completed 8 of 23 passes for 86 yards and ran for 54 against a defense that sacked him three times. Benson ran for just 92 yards, 94 less than his national-leading average.
Another Red River game, another loss. The fifth in a row.
The Sooners reveled in Texas’ misery.
“We could have played all night and they wouldn’t have scored,” defensive end Larry Birdine said after the game.
Center Vince Carter delivered a football facial to Longhorn hearts when he unceremoniously planted an Oklahoma flag at midfield.
“This is our house!” he told reporters.
The game was closer than Texas’ no-show on offense indicated, but the result was the same.
On the bright side, no one in the know was calling the Horns soft like previous seasons, especially the defense. Johnson and Co. held a great offense led by reigning Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Jason White and phenomenal freshman running back Adrian Peterson — who ran for 225 yards in his Red River debut — to 12 points.
But that offense …
In the days that followed, the fan base wasn’t interested in any talk of moral victories. They castigated Brown and offensive coordinator Greg Davis and railed after both told reporters they intentionally went in with a conservative game plan. It screamed fear in the minds of those who were the most frustrated.
“For crying out loud, Mack, give Greg Davis the boot before he causes your demise too,” read Statesman published letter from a reader all the way in Waterloo, Iowa.
Amid all the frustration, who would have believed the Horns would go 19-0, win two Rose Bowls and a 2005 national championship after that game?
If you’re saying ‘Me’ then go look into the mirror and smile at the liar staring back.
So what changed?
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Pulling out all the stops to top the Sooners
Brown has said many times over the years that he left Young alone and accepted that generational talents should be allowed to be creative on and off the field. He made peace with the rap music — clean versions only — in the locker room and embraced the tastes of a roster of young Black men who had different cultural tastes than his own.
Mack even downloaded some 50 Cent on his iPod (remember those?).
Texas emerged more united following the loss. The message in the locker room was clear the next season: beat OU or die tryin’.
“There was a palpable change from the top down after that game,” said former All-American offensive lineman Justin Blalock, whose seal block famously sprang Young toward the end zone to beat USC for the national title in 2005. “The happy-go-lucky Mack Brown you see on TV was a more hands-on, stern captain of the ship and the urgency created hunger in all of us.”
The 2005 meeting was a reckoning. The Sooners scored 12 points for the second straight year, but this time they got boat raced by 33. Texas rode a Vince Young-created wave and OU never made it off the dock.
The upcoming matchup feels similar. The Horns don’t have the look of someone expecting a mudder. They won’t say it, but they expect to smash the Sooners before a tougher matchup against Georgia.
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Here’s what 2004 and 2024 have in common: Sarkisian’s team is winning, but there have been problems with the Sooners. Texas is 16-1 in its last 17 regular season games, but the loss came in shocking last-second fashion to Oklahoma in 2023.
The last thing Sark wants during an otherwise magical run toward what’s most certainly going to be a spot in the College Football Playoff and a possible second consecutive conference title is a 1-3 record against the team he was brought in here to beat.
To his credit, he has built this thing from the ground up and has the talent at his disposal to prove the oddsmakers correct in making the Horns a 14½ point favorite.
Texas doesn’t have a VY presence at QB, but Quinn Ewers and Co. will be plenty good enough to deliver a comfortable winning margin.
It’s still a rivalry, but the Horns, just like their 2005 forefathers, will learn from last season's mistakes and be miles better in this one.
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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas football: 20 years after '04 shutout, Horns must solve new Oklahoma problem | Golden
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