Texas Football Rewind: The day where every Big 12 team won in 2008

Colt McCoy and the 2008 Texas football team would really get off on the right foot with a dominant stretch through their non-conference slate.

A very weird season for the Texas football program, and the rest of the Big 12 in general, started in September 2008. In that once promising 2008 campaign, former Texas head coach Mack Brown and star quarterback Colt McCoy

The 2008 team for the Texas Longhorns football program was arguably even better than the 2009 squad that made it to the BCS National Championship Game. In the 2009 national title game, the Longhorns would take on head coach Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide to no avail thanks to a devastating injury early in the first quarter to McCoy.

However, the 2008 Texas team was also one misstep away from potentially getting the chance to win a national title. That one misstep is fairly well known across the college football landscape, when Texas fell short on a weird Halloween weekend on the road in Lubbock at the hands of the No. 6 Texas Tech Red Raiders on the final play. Graham Harrell would connect with Michael Crabtree to beat the Longhorns by the final score of 39-33.

But there was another weird weekend that occurred earlier in the 2008 season that was a rarity in the Big 12. All of the Big 12 teams that played a game on Sep. 6, 2008 would win. Even lowly teams that season like the Baylor Bears, Iowa State Cyclones, and Texas A&M Aggies (neither of those three would have more than four wins) would their games on that day.

No one that day was particularly impressive, but Iowa State did manage to fend off an upset bid from from the Kent State Golden Flashes. Texas A&M would do the same with the New Mexico Lobos. The Colorado Buffaloes (a five win team in 2008) would also be able to stave off a massive upset bid from FCS Eastern Washington. Colorado won that game by a score of 31-24.

The top 25 teams from the Big 12 that were in action on Sep. 6 included the Oklahoma Sooners, Mizzou Tigers, Kansas Jayhawks (yes you’re not reading this wrong), Texas, and Texas Tech. The Oklahoma State Cowboys, Nebraska Cornhuskers, and Kansas State Wildcats were also top 25-caliber teams for much of the 2008 season.

Mizzou and Kansas were coming off magical seasons in 2007. Kansas even came up with an Orange Bowl win over the previously top-5 ranked Virginia Tech Hokies to cap their special 2007 season. Mizzou was hoping to push for another national title contending season in 2008 after falling short of that goal in the previous year.

No. 14 Kansas would shutout the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, and win by a score of 29-0. No. 6 Mizzou took down FCS Southeast Missouri State in a 52-3 mauling. No. 12 Texas Tech would come up with a closer than anticipated win over the Nevada Wolfpack 35-19. And No. 4 Oklahoma would take care of business against the Cincinnati Bearcats 52-26.

For Texas, Week 2 was a time to get their feet under them in what would be a dominant run through the non-conference schedule. Texas drew the UTEP Miners on the road, and got the best of them by a score of 42-13. At the time, Texas was the No. 10 ranked team in the country.

The other games from that day saw Oklahoma State get a nice win over the Houston Cougars in Stillwater 56-37. Nebraska took care of business against the San Jose State Spartans at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln 35-12. Kansas State couldn’t be stopped against FCS Montana State 69-10. And Baylor would take down Northwestern State 51-6 in a rare triumph of theirs that season.

This was not only the only weekend of the non-conference schedule in the Big 12 where each team from the conference playing would win their game, but it was the only one where all 12 won. Texas was one of 12 teams from the conference that would take care of business on Sep. 6, 2008, and most of the final scores weren’t even close.

The opening weekend of the college football season in the Big 12 would’ve led to all the teams playing winning if not for the Arkansas State Red Wolves pulling off the 18-14 upset of Texas A&M. The Aggies would rebound the following week, but they never really found their stride throughout the 2008 season.

Moreover, Texas would continue their dominance of the non-conference schedule in 2008 by clearing out the Rice Owls and Arkansas Razorbacks by scores of 52-10 in each game. Texas also thoroughly massacred the Florida Atlantic Owls in their season opener the week previous to Sep. 6, winning by a 52-10 score as well.

Texas would later go on a streak prior to losing to Texas Tech where they would beat three straight top 11 opponents. That streak would start by beating No. 1 Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry game 45-35. They followed that up with a dominant 56-31 win over No. 11 Mizzou. And they capped it off by staving off the upset bid from No. 7 Oklahoma State 28-24.

But the definitive week that cost Texas a shot at winning the national title in 2008 would come on Nov. 1 when they fell short on that final play against head coach Mike Leach and Texas Tech. One rather unfortunate play for the Texas secondary defined the entire 2008 season in the end.

Texas would go on a run to end the season where they cleared the rest of the Big 12 schedule and defeated the No. 10 Ohio State Buckeyes by a score of 24-21 in the Fiesta Bowl. That would be the last BCS Bowl game that the Longhorns would win up until they beat the No. 5 ranked Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl to cap the 2018 season.

This truly was one the final great runs and ultra-talented teams coached up by Brown in his time as head coach of the Longhorns.