Football just seems to mean a little bit more in Texas.
The Texas Longhorns aren’t the only college football team in the state, but they’re absolutely a national blue blood and a great representation of how football-centric the state can be.
They’re also historically a winning program. Yes, there have been tough times in recent memory, but this is a program that has been around since 1893 and has collected a ton of wins. That includes four national championships and 33 bowl-game victories.
Strangely enough, though, prior to Monday, the Longhorns had never started the season ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll.
In the freshly minted preseason AP Top 25, Texas beat out Penn State for the top ranking. It was close, though. In fact, the AP, via ESPN, is reporting that this is the closest preseason poll since 1998.
“Texas received 25 first-place votes and 1,552 points to give the Southeastern Conference the preseason No. 1 team for a record fifth straight year,” the AP wrote. “The Nittany Lions got 23 first-place votes and 1,547 points for their highest preseason ranking since they were No. 1 to open the 1997 season.”
Texas went 13-3 last season and made it all the way to the College Football Playoff semifinal before losing to the eventual champion, Ohio State.
The Longhorns lost 12 players to the NFL Draft. There’s always turnover season to season, but head coach Steve Sarkisian is one of the best recruiters in the nation, and he also did a great job of bringing in new talent via the transfer portal.
There’s also the fact that Texas may actually be upgrading at quarterback, as the Longhorns are diving head-first into the Arch Manning era. Former starting quarterback Quinn Ewers went 27-9 as a starter for the Longhorns, which can’t be easily discounted, but considerable hype surrounds Manning and what he could accomplish as the full-time starter.
It all adds up to a preseason No. 1 ranking for Texas, and a historic one at that.
