It was a familiar moment.
Just seconds after the January 2025 loss to Ohio State in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff, then-junior safety Michael Taaffe let his emotions loose in the tunnel.
The Longhorns had just lost to the Buckeyes 28-14 after a last-ditch red zone conversion attempt from Texas turned into an Ohio State pick-six. It was a blow that felt almost personal to a team that, once again, was just a few yards away from an opportunity to play in the National Championship for the first time since 2009.
Just a year before, the Longhorns had lost in a familiar fashion to Washington. That made two years in a row Texas lost in the semifinals.
Taaffe’s reaction at the end of last season was received with mixed reviews.
But to head coach Steve Sarkisian, the moment in the tunnel wasn’t a moment of weakness or of bad sportsmanship. It was simply a moment of competitiveness in the wake of a devastating loss — one that will carry over into Texas’ 2025-26 season.
“When these guys are going into the locker room after a loss in the semifinals, I promise you it hurts them,” Sarkisian said at the 2025 Southeastern Conference Media Days. “We don’t forget that feeling.”
Two years in a row, Texas had been on the doorstep of a national championship. Two years in a row, the door was shut in the Longhorns’ face with a failed fourth-down conversion in the strain of an even game with everything on the line.
The Longhorns want it all this time.
“I want to win a natty. I think we’ve got to the doorstep two years in a row, two too many for my liking. So I want to win a national championship,” junior wide receiver DeAndre Moore Jr. said in a media availability late July.
Texas is preparing to enter its second year in the SEC, which is widely viewed as the most difficult conference in college football. As big a splash as they made during their first year, the Longhorns have even bigger aspirations for this season.
“We’ve got winners in our locker room, and we specifically and intentionally recruited winners into our locker room,” Sarkisian said. “So we’re back to work, and the leadership on this team is full of winners, and that’s the way they want to go about this season is try to go win a championship. That’s the goal.”
Sarkisian has certainly done the job in recruiting and retaining talented, high-quality players. But talent is nothing without the want to succeed, and there’s one thing to be said about this Texas team — it’s hungry.
“Are we going to be complacent with that success, or are we going to raise the bar and raise the standard?” Taaffe said. “What I’m always trying to do is I’m trying to raise the standard and understand that there’s a bar, and we’ve got to reset that every single year to keep chasing greatness.”
Now the Longhorns have a championship in their sights — one that they’ve let slip through their fingers twice in a row. With a group of guys accustomed to winning, the battle against complacency has already been won in the locker room.
“We need to be present in the moment, enjoy the journey and then ultimately finish the mission,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve been close. We’ve been there. We’ve been knocking on the door the last two years. But to go do that, we need to take it one step at a time as we embark on the summit that we’re looking for.”
