The Texas Longhorns are the No. 1 college football team in the nation for the first time in over 15 years.
Less than 24 hours after Texas’ 56-7 beatdown over the UTSA Roadrunners on Saturday, the Associated Press announced the Longhorns slid past former leader Georgia for the top spot following the Bulldogs’ one-point win over unranked Kentucky.
Lifetime Longhorn fans flocked to social media to celebrate this historic moment after enduring years of unpredictability and disappointment following Mack Brown’s 13–1 season in 2009. Texas has since seen five losing seasons, one conference title game and a 78–60 record before head coach Steve Sarkisian hit the scene in 2021.
Senior tight end Gunnar Helm has seen a fair share of lows in his career, starting as a freshman when the Longhorns went 5–7 in their first year under Sarkisian. He now reaps the benefits of sticking around to witness the developed product that he’s contributed to.
“I know it’s huge for people who grew up Texas fans,” Helm said during Monday’s media availability. “To be on the team to bring us back to being ranked No. 1 in the country is a complete honor. I’m honored to be a part of this team.”
Rising from a seventh-place finish in the Big 12 Conference to running the country’s best college football program in its SEC debut within four seasons has been a continuous effort of consistency, culture and focus, Sarkisian said.
Overcoming this hurdle has been a plan in motion since the head coach stepped onto the Forty Acres.
“We’ve had very consistent messaging since the day I got here,” Sarkisian said. “It was probably hard for a lot of other people to see when you’re 5–7, but we had a vision and a goal of where our program could be and the way we were going to get there.”
While Longhorn nation has been soaking in all the glory, fifth-year senior center Jake Majors said the accolade has come too early in the season to be lauded in its entirety.
“It does mean a good bit to me, just because I’ve been 5–7, you know, I’ve gone through those hardships,” Majors said. “But at the end of the day, it’s only week four. It doesn’t really matter until January 20. I want to be No. 1 then. Right now, it’s about how you attack this week.”
Both Sarkisian and his team have their sights set on the bigger picture that comes at the end of the season: becoming a national champion. Sarkisian mentioned that the rankings used to indicate a clean cut path for who would take the title, but the 12-team bracket this year has left room for it to be anybody’s game, and that Texas is not in the clear by any means.
“The way this is set up, back in the day, the polls dictated who got to play for a national championship, and ultimately, who won the national championship. Nowadays, you got to go earn it,” Sarkisian said. “I think it’s good to show that, ‘hey, we know what we’re capable of,’ but at the end of the day we’re gonna have to go earn this thing. And the mission is far from over.”
Every program that Texas has yet to face will look to put their best foot forward in hopes of knocking the Longhorns off their high horse, most notably currently-ranked opponents No. 15 Oklahoma, No. 2 Georgia and No. 25 Texas A&M.
Fans can continue to bask in the limelight, but Sarkisian has made it clear that the ultimate honor will come alongside a golden trophy in January, no matter where his team ranks in the polls.
