The Texas Longhorns and Kansas Jayhawks meet in Austin on Saturday (6 p.m. ET, LHN). Tom Herman’s team will try to do what Texas couldn’t do last year: beat Kansas.
Please never forget Texas lost to Kansas in American tackle football in the year 2016
The Horns’ catastrophic loss created a meme.
Gary Rohman-USA TODAY Sports
The Jayhawks’ 24-21 overtime win in Lawrence last Nov. 19 was the lowest point in a miserable three-year run for Charlie Strong. Losing to Kansas is a low for almost any Power 5 team, but this was a particularly rough gut punch.
On the verge of the teams’ rematch, let’s look back.
Losing to Kansas requires a team to do a lot of things poorly.
In the last two seasons, just one FBS team has managed it: Texas.
But here’s what’s so weird about Texas losing to Kansas, aside from the core fact of Texas losing to Kansas: The Longhorns didn’t even do anything that egregious. They had more yards than Kansas, both per play and in total. Even though they threw three interceptions, the Horns scored 14 points off turnovers to Kansas’ 10. They had a field-position advantage all day, starting the average drive at their own 35-yard line. They had a slight time-of-possession edge and a 21-10 fourth-quarter lead.
Somehow, Texas lost to Kansas anyway. The Horns let the Jayhawks drive 52 yards in six plays and 51 seconds to tie the game on a last-minute field goal. Shane Buechele threw an interception on the second play of overtime, and KU kicked a field goal to win. Even Kansas fans remain baffled as to how their team actually won.
Down go the goal posts.
The loss became an instant meme for the following 12 months.
A light sampling, going back to last year:
During the Oscars, at least 11 people tweeted the following at the same time:
Lots and lots and lots of fans posted phrases like these on social media in response to news events related or unrelated to either team, but this example goes above and beyond:
This one’s from a full eight months after the game ended, just one of many outcomes Horns fans have had to endure:
And it wasn’t just limited to social media, either.
You can also buy a shirt in honor of one bad Big 12 team beating another once:
Design by Humans
By losing to Kansas, Texas put itself in some bad company.
The only teams to do it since 2011 started:
- McNeese State (FCS)
- Northern Illinois (MAC), by three points
- South Dakota State (FCS)
- South Dakota (FCS)
- Louisiana Tech (C-USA), by three points
- 4-8 West Virginia (Big 12)
- Southeast Missouri State (FCS) twice, one of them by six points
- Central Michigan (MAC)
- 2-10 Iowa State (Big 12)
- Rhode Island (FCS)
- One of the biggest and most powerful athletic departments in the country and the winners of four national championships
It snapped a bunch of Kansas streaks in embarrassing fashion.
Texas hadn’t lost to Kansas since 1938. The loss bumped UT to 13-3 against KU all time.
Plus all of these:
And the loss sealed Charlie Strong’s fate in Austin.
It dropped Texas to 5-6, putting the Horns’ bowl eligibility in peril. It also dropped Strong to 16-20 in three seasons. Word leaked that the Longhorns would fire Strong, but they still had a game left in their season.
The Texas players who spoke publicly were devastated, and some reportedly threatened to boycott the season finale a week later against TCU. Texas lost that game and missed out on bowl season, then fired Strong officially.
But Strong’s face and demeanor at the podium in Lawrence a week earlier made it clear that he knew what was coming. Someone asked him, basically, if he thought losing to Kansas would get him fired:
“No, I don’t. No idea,” Strong said, near tears.
At Longhorns blog, Burnt Orange Nation, in the immediate aftermath:
Now it’s time to look toward the future, with another head coach at the helm in Austin.
This just wasn’t acceptable and the decision facing president Greg Fenves should no longer be difficult.
Strong never got traction on the field, and his end might’ve come soon anyway. But Texas can’t lose to Kansas, and that happening made it clear that Strong was done.
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