We were all smiles... in the first quarter

Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

The last time we played UCLA in Austin was 1997, when they smoked us 66-3. I won’t go into too much detail about the implications of that game (here’s a decent summary) but suffice to say, Texas limped to a 4-7 season and that game was seen as one of the key reasons to get rid of John Mackovic and bring in Mack Brown, who oversaw the transformation of Texas into a national powerhouse. Despite all that transformation, I guess we still haven’t figured out how to beat the Bruins.

Many of the second years I talked to had never seen Texas lose, considering they went 13-0 last season before losing in the national title game after Colt McCoy got injured (so it didn’t really count). So there were some broken hearts. But the reality is this team isn’t really going anywhere, and they’ve got some big tests (OU, @Nebraska) coming up real fast.

Still, it’s worth keeping in mind that we do go to Texas, where our expectations are so high that if we’re not contending for the national title, it’s disappointing. I’m not going to name names, but I can tell you quite a few of my friends back east would still trade their b-school’s football program for mine…