This is uncharted territory for the Texas Longhorns.
Twenty years after the program’s last national championship, the Longhorns will begin the 2025 college football season ranked No. 1 in the US LBM Coaches Poll, earning 28 of 67 first-place votes thanks in large part to a potentially unmatched collection of talent paced by third-year sophomore quarterback Arch Manning.
This is a first: Texas had never been ranked No. 1 in the preseason in the history of the Coaches Poll, which debuted in the 1950 season.
“This is a new year, new faces, new team, and obviously expectations are high for our program,” coach Steve Sarkisian said at SEC media days. “I'm not naive to that. I don't put my head in the sand, and expectations are very high.”
The preseason ranking can be seen as the latest source of validation for the program constructed by Sarkisian, now entering his fifth season. Helped by an NIL-driven landscape of personnel management that has been a boon for many deep-pocketed programs, Texas looks on paper to be nearly flawless.
