The College Football Playoff committee announced on Sunday that the Longhorns were the No. 3 seed in the Playoff and would play in the Sugar Bowl for a spot in the national title game.
For the Longhorns, this accomplishment has been a long time coming. This is the first iteration of the current four-team playoff format that Texas will play in. However, Texas has claimed four national champion titles between 1963 and 2005, three of them being Cotton Bowl appearances and one Rose Bowl.
Prior to the creation of the current playoff format in 2014, teams were chosen as national champions through the Bowl Championship Series, adopted in 1998, which similarly opted to consider each program outside of its respective AP Poll ranking in order to determine a postseason victor. The BCS consisted of a four or five bowl game series that included the Rose, Orange, Sugar, Fiesta and BCS National Championship Bowls.
The 10 teams were selected based on the winners of all six championships from each conference inducted into the BCS: the Big 12, ACC, Big 10, Pac-12, SEC and the American. Up until 2005, the system held that the national championship game would be rotated among the four existing bowl games and the entire series only hosted eight teams. A shift in 2006 allowed for four other teams outside of those conferences to compete and made the national championship a separate event altogether.
One of the better-known national victories for Texas would come during its 2005-2006 season, when the Longhorns were led by head coach Mack Brown and went undefeated through their regular schedule. The team went on to win The Big 12 Championship over Colorado, finishing at No. 2, a rank they carried the entire season, and were sent to the Rose Bowl to face then-No. 1 USC.
Texas had been gifted the talents of quarterback Vince Young, a Heisman trophy front-runner and arguably one of the best to ever play for the University. With 19 seconds to go in the fourth quarter and with the Longhorns down by four points, Young ran for an 8-yard touchdown to secure Texas’ victory over USC.
Texas’ final chance at the BCS Championship dates back to 2009, when Brown was in the midst of yet another undefeated season with the Longhorns. Brown had secured a 12–0 record before sending his team to The Big 12 Championship, where then-No. 3 Texas defeated then-No. 21 Nebraska by one point in Arlington to claim the title.
January 2010 would present the Longhorns with their final matchup of the season, the Rose Bowl, against a daunting then-No. 1 and undefeated Alabama Crimson Tide, who were going on their second consecutive perfect-record regular season. Texas had been blessed with another star quarterback in Colt McCoy, but he fell to an injury early in the game. Brown sent in true freshman Garrett Gilbert, who threw four interceptions. A fatal game for the Longhorns ensued, with Texas taking a 37-21 loss and no national title.
Texas has the chance to make history once again and win its first national title since 2005.
