Goosebumps

The Longhorns at the Big House, it's the burnt orange versus the maize and blue for just the second time ever. Whoa nellie!

"To think these two iconic uniforms and those iconic helmets are meeting for the first time in the Big House, man, it's awesome. I'm getting goosebumps right now, and we've got five days to go, so it's pretty special."
~Steve Sarkisian

As Dusty Mangum lined up for a 37-yard field goal at the end of the 2005 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, it felt like there were miles between him and the uprights, as if the kick was being attempted from over in Riverside. So much stood between Texas and a victory against the Michigan Wolverines. In Mack Brown’s seventh season, the Longhorns were the team that always faltered in big games—against Oklahoma, in the Big 12 Championship, and when the season was on the line. But this game was even bigger. At the time of their meeting in Pasadena, the iconic maize and blue sported the most wins of all time, while the burnt orange and white were tied for the third-most victories. It was also the first time the two teams had ever faced off, in over 100 years of college football.

That mind-blowing fact highlights how regional the sport really was for the first century that it existed. Up until then, college football was bound by the NCAA and by traditions as stringent as Old Testament law. Texas’ presence in the Rose Bowl, the sport’s most iconic venue, was a break in convention itself. The bowl had traditionally pitted the Big Ten and Pac-10 (RIP) conferences against one another. To kneecap the Pac-2 12 10 required a fair bit of politicking by Brown in the media, and Texas ended up edging out Aaron Rodgers’ Cal Bears¹ by a mere .0102 points in the BCS Polls.* This was before the playoff and opt-outs ruined bowl games. If this game were played today, it very well might not have included the five players who were drafted in the first round. In 2005, the non-championship BCS games were important trophies to win; the lineup of trophies a team cared about resembled the buffet of silverware available to English soccer teams—they all meant something.

But all of this ignores the most important character in the whole story. The player who was still writing his great prologue into the fabric of college football. The reason that Mangum’s field goal attempt was a chip shot—and not the mile-long length it might have seemed to the nervous fan like me—was because of the quarterback who went God Mode during the game. His greatness surpassed the baggage of Texas’ shortcomings up until that point. It closed the gap that might have existed between the ball and the uprights. Vince Young’s inevitability, his superhuman nature, was on full display that night against Michigan more than it had ever been before. He wasn’t sharing the field with a bunch of scrubs either—great players like Braylon Edwards, Lamarr Woodley, Derrick Johnson, and Cedric Benson, future NFL players galore, were on that field. As was the future #1 overall pick, Wolverine Jake Long, and much of the cast of the Longhorns’ National Championship team. But Vince was singularly great in a way that not many football players are; it’s a power usually reserved for great athletes in individual sports or superstars in basketball like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Steph Curry. The venue added to the artistry of it all, like watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel, at the Sistine Chapel. Vince’s monster stat line doesn’t even do his performance justice: he had 192 yards rushing and four touchdowns on the ground, plus a touchdown to David Thomas through the air. But what was so spectacular was how he continued to make the miraculous look mundane. “NO! Unbelievable! How in the world?” the indelible Keith Jackson and NFL veteran Dan Fouts would exclaim, when they weren’t speechless. It wasn’t believable, but it was happening. It was Vince Young. And it was his preamble to the show he’d put on in the same stadium against USC a year later, but the result of that game was already etched in stone—or in the stars, wherever such stories are written.

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Here are three thoughts on the Longhorns and Wolverines' second-ever meeting, Saturday in Ann Arbor.

1. The rarity of these two helmets facing off on the same field makes it so special. I hope we get the 2027 matchup in Austin, but I’m pessimistic. When you compare the 2005 game to now, college football looks almost entirely different, save for the fans and the jerseys. On the one hand, conference consolidation and the expanded playoff make it more likely that we see the iconic helmets of the sport facing off with more frequency. But, on the other, Sark said the thought of this matchup is giving him “goosebumps,” and I fear that goes away if future matchups occur outside historic venues like the Rose Bowl, the Big House, and DKR—and inside stale, lifeless environments like Hard Rock Stadium and Lucas Oil. What we’ll get to see on Saturday is pure, in a sport that’s increasingly adulterated, so soak it up.

2. I wrote last year after Week One that the first weeks of the season are unreliable narrators. We extrapolate giant trends from them, when really the games are made up of nerves, rust, and heat. Texas put together a less-than-inspiring performance against Rice in Week One last year, and it sure got people talking—only for it to have zero impact on the season or even the following week. Against the Owls, it looked like Ewers' deep ball was permanently lost, with its ad plastered on the back of a milk carton. Then he went on the road to Tuscaloosa and played the game of his life, throwing the best deep passes of his Longhorn career. So, do I think the Wolverines are the Longhorns from last year? No. But to think that Michigan won’t be better than their lackluster Week One performance is foolish, just like it was ridiculous to think Texas wasn’t better than week one during last season.

   

3. A similarity between the 2024 and 2004 Texas teams does exist. The 2005 Rose Bowl capped the 2004 season, but it served as the first major test for the next year’s Texas team and showed them what they were capable of. In 2005, Texas would beat Ohio State on the road, finally slay their nemesis in Oklahoma, get over the Big 12 Championship hump for Mack Brown, and win their first national title in 30+ years. All of that was made possible by laying the groundwork at that Michigan Rose Bowl. Texas faces a similar gauntlet this year: first in Ann Arbor, a Red River revenge game, Georgia in Austin, two historic rivalry games, the SEC schedule, and hopefully the expanded playoff. Though the 12-team playoff provides more margin for error than systems of the past, Texas’ road to the mountaintop starts on Saturday. Michigan might be replacing a boatload of draft picks, Jim Harbaugh, JJ McCarthy, their entire offensive line, and the sign-stealing guy, but they’re still the defending champs. By the way, the defending champs who happen to be home dogs by more than a touchdown. Even with a walk-on quarterback starting and a first-time head coach, they’ll be angry. Their crowd of 110,000 will be rabid. What’s more, despite their losses, they have arguably the best cornerback and tight end in college football,² and their defensive tackle duo will remind Texas fans of Sweat and Murphy. It’s a "make your money" game for the interior of Texas’ offensive line: Hayden Conner, Jake Majors, DJ Campbell. The six-man wide receiver corps of Texas and their three capable tight ends must show out, and whoever Will Johnson isn’t guarding will need to cut Michigan to the quick. I’ve thought about how if Quinn Ewers had thrown a better ball to AD Mitchell in last season’s Sugar Bowl (we can apply the “if” word to a lot of things from that game), we’d be talking about these two programs' third-ever matchup against one another instead, as they would have faced off in Houston for the National Championship in January. I bet Quinn has thought of that too, whether he’d ever admit it or not. In the same way he had unfinished business against Alabama after being knocked out of the 2021 game in Austin, he has it here too. It’s not Washington and it’s a different Michigan team, but it’s also a different Quinn Ewers, one with something to prove. Quinn isn’t Vince Young, and he doesn’t have to be—but he and the Longhorns’ quest starts against the same foe that Young’s did. It’s a "prove it" game against the Wolverines.

   Texas 30 Wolverines 19

Check out the first ever Dance With Who Brung Ya podcast episode with Derrick Johnson! We talk the Michigan Rose Bowl, VY, Mahomes and more! Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.

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1. Here are some highlights of how Cal acquitted themselves in bowl season that year, getting blasted in the Holiday Bowl against Mike Leach and the Red Raiders.

2. Great article scouting Michigan by Inside Texas’ Charlie Williams.

3. Follow The Longhorn Alphabet on Instagram and check for updates about pre-orders!