Texas Football Rewind: Looking back on Aaron Ross’ 7 PD game in 2006

A statistical marvel of a game for the Texas football program came from cornerback Aaron Ross in a 2006 win over the Iowa State Cyclones.

Former Texas football cornerback Aaron Ross is one of the more underrated players from this program over the course of the 2000’s. Texas shined as a football program during the 2000’s, under the direction of former head coach Mack Brown. They won a BCS National Championship in the 2006 Rose Bowl, and nearly won another title over the Alabama Crimson Tide to cap the 2009 season. But a key injury to former star quarterback Colt McCoy halted Texas in their tracks in the 2009 BCS National Championship Game.

One year after the Texas Longhorns football program beat the USC Trojans in the 2006 Rose Bowl to claim their first national title of the new century, they came in with high expectations. Mack was looking to take a team led by a new starting quarterback, and a true freshman, and defend their national title admirably.

But the Longhorns did not come out of the gates on the right foot in the fall of 2006. Texas did knock off the North Texas Mean Green in the season opener, by the final score of 56-7. But they came out flat the following week, when former Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Troy Smith and the Ohio State Buckeyes convincingly defeated Texas in Austin 24-7.

Texas would have to come back strong the week after falling short to Ohio State. In that following week’s game, Texas would open Big 12 play against the Iowa State Cyclones. That Iowa State team had a wide receiver in Todd Blythe and a quarterback in Bret Meyer that were very underrated at the time, and wanted to mince up the Texas secondary.

Meyer was one of the more experienced returning starting quarterbacks in the Big 12 heading into the 2006 season, but he was not able to take advantage of a Texas secondary coming off a down week. He looked good for a brief stretch in the second quarter, but that’s when the Longhorns defensive backs took over.

Texas got their best individual performance on defense of the afternoon out of Ross. And Ross was able to help Texas come out with the win over Iowa State in an unusually impressive manner. Texas saw Ross rack up seven total tackles, one interception, and seven pass deflections in this game.

That is the highest number of pass deflections by any Longhorn since the turn of the century in a single game. In fact, that number of pass deflections in one game by Ross is two more than any other Texas defensive back had last season in total. Cornerbacks Jalen Green and Kobe Boyce tied for the team lead with five pass deflections each way last year.

However, Ross was one of two defensive backs for the Longhorns that came away with at least one interception on the afternoon. Safety Michael Griffin also had an interception, but five less pass deflections than Ross.

The Texas secondary didn’t get beat much in general in this game, but Ross was especially tough to get past. He had the assignment of covering two different small but did a fantastic job showing out in the process. The entirety of the Texas defense was really good in this game. They held Meyer to his lowest rushing yardage total of the season and one of his five worst completion percentages.

This game was really a statistical marvel for Ross. It ties the individual game high for any player in the FBS/Division 1A college football since the turn of the century for pass deflections/passes defended. Houston’s William Jackson III, Virginia Tech’s Jayron Hosley, and Minnesota’s Michael Carter are the only other three players to rack up as many pass deflections in a single game as Ross did in 2006 against Iowa State.

The only other former Longhorn to come even close to the number of pass deflections in a single game as Ross in 2006 was Kris Boyd, with five in 2017 against the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

This win over Iowa State would help the Longhorns finish up the 2006 campaign with a record of 10-3 (6-2 Big 12) that would ironically end with an Alamo Bowl win over the Clones’ in-state rival Iowa Hawkeyes.