The Longhorns' 2024 schedule features the national champion Michigan Wolverines
With Michigan crowned national champion after defeating Washington, the Texas Longhorns will play in a contest with the reigning champs for the first time since the epic 2006 Rose Bowl versus USC. Steve Sarkisian and company will travel to Ann Arbor, Mich. on Sept. 7, 2024 to play the Wolverines in Michigan Stadium.
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What Michigan looks like come September remains to be seen. Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh’s name has been associated with a return to the NFL. Plus, many of Michigan’s top players are set to exhaust their eligibility or declare early for the NFL draft. No matter who dons the maize and blue in 2024, they’ll walk into the Big House ahead of their matchup with the Longhorns with a championship ring in tow.
It’s the first time since 2001 that the Longhorns have the defending national champions on the regular season schedule. Texas faced 2000 national champion Oklahoma in 2001, falling to the Sooners in the Cotton Bowl by a score of 14-3. The storied matchup with USC on January 4, 2006 came about after the Longhorns were ranked No. 2 in the Bowl Championship Series rankings behind the No. 1 Trojans. Both teams were selected to the Rose Bowl, which hosted the national championship game that year.
Most of Texas’ matchups with defending national champions are with the Sooners, who claim seven national titles. In the seven Red River Shootouts in the years following those crimson championships, the Longhorns are 1-5-1
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The Longhorns’ membership in the Southwest Conference and in the Big 12 provided a number of opportunities to play defending national champions. In 1939, the Longhorns defeated reigning champs TCU 25-19. Texas did the same a year later topping Texas A&M 7-0 in 1940.
UT finally succumbed to a reigning national champion in 1965 when the Arkansas Razorbacks topped Texas after that program’s only claimed national title. The Longhorns would go another 31 years before facing a conference foe coming off a national title when they played Nebraska in the inaugural Big 12 Championship. Texas famously topped the Cornhuskers 37-27 thanks the the legendary “Roll Left” executed by James Brown.
There have been a handful of other contests with defending champs, most of them the result of postseason bowl games.
Overall, the Longhorns are 8-8-1 in those games.
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Texas versus defending national champions
1920 – Texas A&M – W 7-3
1936 – Minnesota – L 47-19
1939 – TCU – W 25-19
1940 – Texas A&M – W 7-0
1951 – Oklahoma – W 9-7
1952 – Tennessee – W 16-0 – Cotton Bowl
1956 – Oklahoma – L 45-0
1957 – Oklahoma – L 21-7
1961 – Ole Miss – W 12-7 – Cotton Bowl
1965 – Arkansas – L 27-24
1975 – Oklahoma – L 24-17
1976 – Oklahoma – T 6-6
1986 – Oklahoma – L 47-12
1990 – Miami (Fla.) – L 46-3 – Cotton Bowl
1996 – Nebraska – W 37-27 – Big 12 Championship
2001 – Oklahoma – L 14-3
2005 – USC – W 41-38 – Rose Bowl/National Championship Game
2024 – Michigan – ???
