Texas football: 5 best seasons in Longhorns history

1. Texas football wins it all behind Vince Young’s heroics in 2005

The 2005 version of the Texas Longhorns were truly a special team. Featuring arguably the greatest quarterback of the 2000s in Vince Young and a legendary coach in Mack Brown, the Longhorns were a force to be reckoned with, and few teams that season proved capable of keeping up with Texas.

One such opponent who showed that it could contend with the Longhorns was No. 4 Ohio State. The Buckeyes hosted the No. 2 Longhorns in the second week of the season in what was one of the most intriguing matchups of the entire season. Texas survived its trip to Columbus thanks to a late touchdown pass in the fourth quarter, securing a 25-22 win over the Buckeyes.

After that scare against Ohio State, Texas really didn’t seem to have many issues through the rest of the year. Texas crushed unranked foes and ranked foes alike, making it all the way to 10-0 before a trip to Aggieland.

Texas A&M turned out to be the toughest opponent Texas had taken on since that trip to Columbus, Ohio, but the Longhorns still beat the Aggies by 11 points, making it through the regular season unscathed.

With a perfect record, Texas then earned the right to face Colorado in the Big 12 championship. The game, a rematch of a 42-17 Texas win from earlier in the season, got truly ugly. Texas won 70-3 and claimed its second Big 12 championship in the process.

At 12-0, Texas went on to face USC in what many consider to be the single greatest college football game of all time. In a marvelous display of high powered offenses featuring phenomenal athletes, the Texas Longhorns came out on top as Young brought Texas back from a late 12-point deficit. Young scored the winning touchdown with 19 seconds left on the clock, putting the Longhorns up 41-38.

A perfect season, a Rose Bowl victory in an instant classic college football game that will forever be revered, and a Big 12 championship. That’s a pretty good season.

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