Texas Longhorns fans look on as the Texas Longhorns band performs during pre-game of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023, in Austin, Texas.
Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman
This college football season, everything — including the expectations — will be bigger in Texas.
As the Texas Longhorns prepare for a 2025 season that begins next weekend at Ohio State, they have been tabbed as the No. 1 team in the country. At least that’s been the determination made by 65 media members and 67 football coaches. The Longhorns were ranked first in both the Associated Press’ preseason poll and the US LBM Coaches Poll.
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NO. 1 TEXAS AT NO. 3 OHIO STATE
When/where: 11 a.m. Aug. 30 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio
TV/radio: Fox, 1300, 98.1, 105.3
It’s the first time Texas has been ranked first ahead of a season by the AP, which has had a preseason poll since 1950. The coaches also had never before labeled the Longhorns as their preseason favorite. Even when Texas was coming off one of its four national championships, it never earned the benefit of the doubt and a preseason ranking that was higher than No. 2 the following season.
And what do the Longhorns think of this historic honor?
“I mean, that doesn’t mean anything,” starting quarterback Arch Manning said. “Being ranked before the season even starts doesn’t mean anything. I don’t even know how they get those opinions.”
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Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) warms up ahead of the Texas Longhorns’ game against the ULM Warhawks at Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Sept. 21, 2024.
Sara Diggins/American-Statesman
GOLDEN: Arch Manning, Texas football sit atop AP poll after hyped offseason
Manning’s words weren’t that different from the ones his coach has used when asked about the rankings. Steve Sarkisian has often argued that polls are fodder for fans and the media but don’t have much relevance within an actual locker room.
“What other people think of us really is irrelevant,” he argued two years ago. At the time, Texas No. 12 in the coaches poll. And four weeks into the 2024 season, Texas had climbed to No. 1 in the AP rankings and Sarkisian reminded reporters of his refrain that “it really doesn’t matter.”
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So, unsurprisingly, his opinion hasn’t swayed, not even with Texas on top. Those national polls? Sarkisian, who has gone 38-17 with two appearances in the College Football Playoff semifinals at Texas, considers them to be white noise.
“It’s irrelevant to the way the season is going to go. It’s irrelevant to the way we’re going to play. It’s irrelevant to how our opponents are going to play,” Sarkisian said Aug. 11. “Maybe it puts a little bigger bull’s eye on us for our opponents. But the reality is we have to go do it, right? We have to perform, and we have to perform at a high level over time and time and time again. That shouldn’t change whether we were 1, 8, 12, 30, it shouldn’t matter, right?”
Added Sarkisian: “I think that expectations around here are always to be champions. I mean, that hasn’t changed since day one. I think the key to the drill is you’d like to have a No. 1 next to you at the end of the season, right?”
Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian leads the team onto the field as the Texas Longhorns prepare to play the Clemson Tigers in the first round of the College Football Playoffs at Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas, Dec. 21, 2024.
Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
How often are the AP voters and coaches right?
In addition to not endorsing the polls, Sarkisian also doesn’t participate in them. While eight coaches represent the SEC among the voters in the coaches poll, Sarkisian hasn’t cast a coaches ballot since 2021.
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He said he’d consider voting if the polls actually factored into the decision-making for CFP berths, but he otherwise doesn’t have the time to devote to properly participating.
“I don’t have time on Saturday to watch,” he said. “Who am I to say that team is better than that team?”
Sarkisian isn’t wrong. Who’ll win this year’s national championship is literally anyone’s guess.
Since the first year of the Bowl Championship System format in 1998, only three teams that were ranked No. 1 in the preseason by the AP went on to win the national championship: Florida State in 1999, USC in 2004 and Alabama in 2017. Those three teams are also the only one that have started and finished No. 1 in the coaches poll during that span.
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Texas has chance to prove itself on the field instead of in the polls
Even if Texas deems these preseason polls to be irrelevant and even if these preseason polls are rarely right, that doesn’t mean these preseason polls can be completely ignored. As UT linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. pointed out, “we’re all on the same Internet as y’all.”
Texas Longhorns wide receiver Xavier Worthy (1) and Texas Longhorns linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. (0) make their way take the field against Kansas State Wildcats at the start of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, November. 4, 2023, in Austin, Texas.
Ricardo Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman
So why is Texas being hyped? For starters, the Longhorns have reached the national semifinals in each of the past two seasons. The Longhorns lost 12 players to the 2025 NFL draft, but Hill and senior safety Michael Taaffe are back after earning All-Americans accolades last year. Manning, the former five-star recruit and member of a famed football family, will get his first shot at being the team’s starting quarterback. Edge rusher Colin Simmons, running backs CJ Baxter and Quintrevion Wisner and wide receiver Ryan Wingo are names to know as are offensive lineman DJ Campbell, defensive back Malik Muhammad and linebacker Trey Moore.
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TEXAS LONGHORNS: 4 ways team may underdeliver on sky-high expectations in 2025
The fact that Texas could seemingly contend for a national championship this fall is remarkable. Just four years ago, Texas went 5-7 in Sarkisian’s first season in Austin. That run featured a school-record six-game losing streak and a woeful loss to Kansas.
But Texas now finds itself looking down in the AP preseason poll on Penn State, Ohio State, Clemson and Georgia teams that averaged 10.5 wins in 2021. For that turnaround, Taaffe — who’s one of two remaining players from that 2021 Texas team — credited coaching continuity from Sarkisian and coordinators Kyle Flood, Pete Kwiatkowski and Jeff Banks as well as the leadership shown by former players like Roschon Johnson, Jaylan Ford and DeMarvion Overshown.Â
Texas students cheer at. the Georgia game at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium Saturday October 19, 2024.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman
To open the season, Texas will travel to Ohio State for what should be a sensational showdown between the Longhorns and college football’s defending champion. The Longhorns hope to end a 20-year drought without a national title.
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“It’s not really hard to ignore (the outside noise) if you just focus on what you need to do every day, like coming to practice,” Hill said. “We had a hard practice today, just focus on that, then get ready for tomorrow and watch the film. You don’t really want to look at all the hype. That’s when you get caught up in it and it just ruins your focus.”
The Longhorns insist that they are more focused on the Buckeyes than the preseason polls.
Said Manning: “I feel like we do a good job of keeping the main thing the main thing, trying to get better every day and go win some games.”
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