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Top six Texas football defeats I'm glad are far, far, far in the rearview

by: RT Young08/07/25
CeeDee Lamb, Caden Sterns
CeeDee Lamb, Caden Sterns (Tim Heitman-Imagn Images)

I’m doing a 12-hour road trip home from Angel Fire, New Mexico today with my family. Three kids under six (one is six months), my 90-pound Labrador who’s 11 and my self-employed wife—who, when she does drive, needs to stop randomly to answer emails on her computer. All this is happening in a Yukon bursting at the seams with stuff.

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Most days aren’t like this. It’s the trade-off for a three-week stint summering away from the Central Texas heat. The road trips are like the valley you have to endure as a fan before the good old days return. Days like this can feel endless, like you’re on a treadmill. But if given the option, I’d rather be stuck in Groundhog Day here than relive one of these six-ish painful Texas losses.

Here are the Longhorn defeats I’d give anything not to experience again.

Honorable mentions from the recent dark ages:

The entire 2020 season, for a variety of reasons. Double Maryland. Nick Rose and Cal. 50–7 in Fort Worth. Taysom Hill × 2. And whatever we call the Oklahoma State game when Charlie Strong “bumped” the ref.

6) The Caleb Williams Oklahoma Game

Unfortunately, this is a game where I can still see practically every play in my head. My legs felt weak walking out of the Cotton Bowl. And though there’s never a silver lining in losing to your rival, I do wonder if Sark would’ve been able to overhaul the team like he needed to if the 2021 season had gone a little better.

5) Charlie Strong Loses to Kansas

My friends and I started laughing the moment it happened, a sick chuckle where we realized our team’s gruesome mortality. I wonder how the Philistines felt when they saw Goliath thud to the ground?

4) The 2018 Big 12 Championship – OU 39, Texas 27

Have you ever been on a first date where you’ve been crushing it, only to bring up something incredibly dumb that derails the whole thing? Like, “Where were you on 9/11?” That’s the equivalent of what Tom Herman did in this game. Up 14–6 over the Sooners, he called a drive-killing halfback pass with Keaontay Ingram, right at the moment when Texas had Oklahoma on the ropes, bruised by Sam Ehlinger.

3) The 2001 Big 12 Championship – Colorado 39, Texas 37

This was an early realization for a lot of Longhorn fans in my generation that not all stories have fairy-tale endings. A heroic Major Applewhite comeback—thwarted. National championship dreams—in flames. Mack Brown’s conference title dragon—un-slayed.

2) Rout 66 – UCLA 66, Texas 3

I was young when this watershed moment in the John Mackovic era happened, so I don’t have the existential feelings about it that some do. Paul Wadlington wrote a piece for Barking Carnival back in the day. But what I do remember is being at a classmate’s birthday party. He was the youngest in a family of five—every kid and parent a Red Ass, Hump-It style Aggie. Their elation was euphoric. I remember the dad jumping on the couch barefoot at one point. Things got so bad and the humiliation so strong that I might’ve even started cheering for the Bruins too. Like the Longhorns, it’s a moment I wish to keep buried deep in the dirt.

PS-the kid having the birthday party defected from the rest of the family and went to UT. Redemption, after all.

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1B) Michael Crabtree/1A) The ‘09 National Championship

Nothing to see or say here.

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