ARLINGTON, Texas -- The call came from Bill Parcells. The crusty old coach had seen it a million times. A sterling-minted football program expected to win somehow letting that entitled mentality seep into the locker room.
So Parcells, then the Dallas Cowboys head coach, did Mack Brown a favor. He told the Texas coach that's exactly how the No. 2 Longhorns looked to him in mid-November 2005.
"We beat Kansas 66-14," Brown recalled this week to CBS Sports. "He said, 'Man, you're in trouble.' I said, 'Coach, we're undefeated.' He said, 'Yeah, you're walking around like a rat about to eat some poison cheese.'"
This was years before Nick Saban would coin the term "rat poison" and, in fact, use it as an inspiration to win national championships. Almost 20 years since that conversation the recently retired Brown says Texas' last championship season is exactly where the term originated.
"Bill knew Nick, too," Brown said. "I'm sure he got it from him."
Back then, the point had been made. Parcells saw so much positive in Texas. He also saw so much that could be lost with the Horns headed to Texas A&M for their next game.
"This is their national championship game," Parcells told Brown regarding the Aggies. "You look like you could care less."
Texas' coach paid heed and went to unique lengths. Brown had his staff hang cheese from every locker with a note attached containing Parcells' warning. Sure enough, the Longhorns fell behind by one early in the third quarter. Quarterback Vince Young was playing arguably his shakiest game of the season.
Reached by phone this week, as his former team prepares to take on Ohio State as a near-touchdown underdog in the College Football Playoff Cotton Bowl semifinal, Brown relayed the anecdote for two reasons:
- Because the Horns did indeed rally to win the game and eventually their last championship that season under his watch
- Motivation is a distinct issue everywhere
"You need an edge," Brown said. "You need an edge every day."
Not that the Horns aren't properly driven going into Friday's game against Ohio State. It's that they are underdogs for the first time in a long time playing in their home state in familiar surroundings three hours from campus.
The oddsmakers have seen fit to make the Buckeyes a 5.5-point favorite. Texas hasn't lost a game as an underdog in almost three full seasons, mostly because it is rarely an underdog these days. It has been since a 2022 Week 2 one-point loss to top-ranked Alabama that Texas has lost when not favored. The Longhorns were 21-point dogs at kickoff of that game.
Texas' last game it won as an underdog came in the 2023 return game at Alabama. That result signaled Texas' return to national prominence and established Sarkisian as the next worthy Texas coach to lead it to the promised land.
"Clearly we're massive underdogs," Sarkisian said with more than a hint of sarcasm this week. "Nobody's going to give us a shot."
Those remarks were tinged with what Brown used to say about his franchise: Texas was everyone's bullseye, everyone's New York Yankees. The Longhorns couldn't afford to let down because everyone got up for them.
"You latch onto anything you can to find an edge," Brown said. "I mean, the least bit you can get. At Texas, one of the keys to that job is trying to get your guys every week because it's hard to do, because everybody is telling you how great you are. You're usually the pick. You have to just motivate yourself."
That's another reminder Friday's game qualifies as Texas' biggest since 2010 BCS Championship Game against Alabama. In that 37-21 loss, quarterback Colt McCoy hurt his shoulder early on negating any chance for Brown to get a second national championship.
Yeah, it's been a while.
There are reminders of the drought sprinkled in the media guide. Brown won 158 games in 16 seasons in Austin, becoming the school's second-winningest coach behind Darrell Royal.
Since Brown was pushed out, Charlie Strong and Tom Herman didn't quite measure up. From 2010-2022, the likes of Kansas State won more games, won more Big 12 championships and went to more bowls than Texas.
Sarkisian finally nursed the program back to health, winning the Big 12 before losing a national semifinal to Washington last season.
These days the Longhorns have earned their spot as a weekly favorite. Now they just have to follow through on the rare occasion when it's not.
"I think we're really dangerous as underdogs," tight end Gunnar Helm said.
Eighth-seeded Ohio State is a similar superpower. The two schools are the richest -- at least in terms of athletic revenue -- in the country. On the field, the Buckeyes are the hottest team in the playoff.
Texas has the most curious profile. Since the beginning of 2022, the Horns are a modest 22-18-1 as a favorite. You have to go back 10 years to find that many total games the Longhorns have been an underdog (42 since 2015).
This Texas team on a run is considered a rare underdog in a de facto home game. A pass defense that was 116th last season is now elite (third nationally). Quinn Ewers has thrown a touchdown pass in 26 straight games.
But Arizona State just got done running 97 plays and possessing the ball for almost 38 minutes in a narrow loss to Texas in the quarterfinal.
"We never consider ourselves underdogs," linebacker Anthony Hill said.
Maybe, but this is sort of a game of underdogs. Sark has conquered personal demons to get to this point. Former Michigan antagonist Jim Harbaugh continues to refer to Ohio State coach Ryan Day as being "born on third base." Day is an epitome of an underdog. His father died by suicide. Day then played quarterback at FCS New Hampshire before working his way up the coaching ladder.
Texas defensive back Michael Taaffe is a fifth-generation Longhorn native son who walked on from nearby Austin Westlake High. Taaffe has played in state title games in the same venue he'll start in Friday, AT&T Stadium.
"I talked to the defensive backs about being the underdog because that's my story," Taaffe said. "I love being the underdog. That's what I grew up with. That's the adversity I faced."
Taaffe has become a sympathetic figure of another kind. Many thought his tackle of Arizona State's Melquan Stovall in the Peach Bowl was targeting. That argument can be made, but no one deserves the reaction Taaffe got on social media.
"Things that were thrown my way after that game, on texts, people that were finding my phone number … I don't think anyone should have to go through," Taaffe said. "Thank God that I don't put my trust in what others say about me."
The Ohio State favorite's role has been earned. It comes into the game with the nation's No. 1 defense (Texas is No. 3). The Buckeyes have 12 sacks in two playoff games. Quarterback Will Howard is the CFP's top-rated passer. Receiver Jeremiah Smith is arguably the MVP of the tournament to date. No. 2 wideout Emeka Egbuka is a likely first-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
"They have a whole receiver group that can go," said Texas cornerback Jahdae Barron, who won the 2024 Jim Thorpe Award. "They can go. But that's what you live for. These type of games, these situations, to go out there - good on good - while the whole world is watching, and have an opportunity like that, it's amazing."
It makes sense to end this report with Brown weaving -- what was to him -- the ultimate underdog tale. Less than a month before that 2006 Rose Bowl, Young sat in the Heisman ceremony in New York as the runner-up to USC's Reggie Bush.
"I was with Vince at the Heisman," Brown recalled. "Football team's in a room in Austin watching. Reggie wins. Vince is upset. He goes immediately to his phone and calls one of the guys in the teams room and says, 'Game on, man.' "
USC would eventually close as an eight-point favorite. (Texas had been an underdog in one other game that season – a 25-22 win at Ohio State.)
Young helped pull off the USC upset with one of the signature plays in Texas and college football history – a 4th-and-5 scramble for a touchdown with 19 seconds left.
"They fed off Vince," Brown said of his team. "They fed off the fact, it was 'quote' supposed to be a home game for USC in the Rose Bowl. All the Rose Bowl people wanted the Pac-12 and the Big Ten, they didn't really want Texas in there. We fed off all that. Nobody wanted us. We were a huge underdog.
"It really was a positive for us Vince lost the Heisman," Brown said.
That might be a strange way to record history but Texas is no different than anyone else. Ask Brown -- you need an edge every day.
