I found myself thinking about the 2005 national championship team this weekend.
Originally, I was locked in on a position-by-position, side-by-side analysis of the 2024 Longhorns vs. Mack Brown's legacy squad, but before I could get knee-deep into the comparisons, I started to think about how the national championship team in 2005 wasn't a national championship team when the season started.
The Rose Bowl champions from the previous season finished fifth in the nation in the final AP Poll and fourth in the Coaches Poll. Last year's Longhorns finished third in the AP Poll and fourth in the Coaches Poll. As crazy as it might sound to compare the current team to arguably the greatest team in the history of the sport, the starting points aren't too dissimilar.
Both teams lost big-time players to the NFL. Both teams returned starting quarterbacks, a stable of running backs, an imposing offensive line, edge players to frighten opposing defenses, a single bad-ass linebacker and a plethora of NFL talent in the secondary.
In terms of returning elite players, the 2024 team returns an All-American in Kelvin Banks, while the 2005 team returned All-American Jonathan Scott. The edge that the 2005 team had in terms of elite players that returned from 2004 comes in the form of returning All-American safety Michael Huff and All-American Rod Wright. Neither were consensus All-Americans, but they were named All-American as juniors.
But, that's just the starting point.
This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.
