3 recent Texas football teams that lived up to the preseason hype

Entering the inaugural season playing in the SEC in 2024, Texas football is expected to contend on the national stage in Year 4 under head coach Steve Sarkisian. Texas was picked to finish second in the SEC media preseason poll at media days in Dallas last week.

Where does Texas football go after a big 2023 season leaving the Big 12?

Coming off a season where the Longhorns won the Big 12 Championship for the first time since 2009 and made the program's first-ever appearance in the College Football Playoff, expectations are high once again for Texas this fall. Sarkisian has arguably an even deeper and more talented squad on both sides of the ball entering this fall than he had on the Playoff team last year.

Texas should be in the Playoff conversation again this upcoming season in 2024, especially with the expanded field of 12 teams adding eight more squads than there used to be in the four-team CFP.

Sarkisian has the Texas program in a much better place than it was for the decade before he took over in 2021. Texas has gone from being a middle-to-upper tier Big 12 program in the years under former head coach Tom Herman to contending on the national stage again after a few years under Sarkisian.

With the start of preseason camp a little over one week away, and the release of the major preseason polls looming, it's a good time to look back at expectations for the Longhorns from previous years.

Here's a look back at three Texas teams from the past couple of decades that lived up to the preseason hype.

2009 (13-1, 8-0 Big 12)

Preseason ranking: 2

AP Final: 2

The last time the Longhorns made it to the National Championship Game was during the BCS era in the 2009-10 college football season. Star Texas quarterback Colt McCoy led the Longhorns to an undefeated 13-0 run during the regular season, claiming the Big 12 title while toppling key rivals like Texas A&M and Oklahoma.

Texas had high expectations entering the 2009 season after falling just a few steps short of playing for a BCS national title the previous year in 2008. McCoy was a stud for the Longhorns in 2009, winning the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year and getting an invite to New York City as a Heisman finalist for that season.

Head coach Mack Brown continued his dominance with Texas on the national stage and the Big 12 in the mid-to-late 2000s, leading the Longhorns to their second straight season with at least 12 wins.

Texas unfortunately finished one step short of winning its second national title of the decade falling short of the Alabama Crimson Tide in the BCS National Championship Game after McCoy's injury caused him to exit the game early in the first half.

We've all heard this take a million times, but there is an err of truth to the idea that Texas could've won its second title since 2005 had McCoy stayed healthy against Alabama in the 2009-10 BCS title game.