- If you asked a random group of 100 college football fans who reached 200 wins at an earlier age among Bear Bryant, Bobby Bowden, Woody Hayes, Joe Paterno, Lou Holtz, and Mack Brown, how many do you think would guess correctly? There’s an obvious reason why, but I’ll just enjoy the answer for now.
- After the 1997 season, we were in a tie for 4th on wins (59 from 1st), and 6th on win %. Texas is currently 2nd on the all-time wins (40 from 1st), and 3rd on the NCAA FBS all-time winning % list. I think about that stuff, and wish I believed Mack was going to stick around more than a few more seasons.
- Could you name the all-time winningest coach in college football history, regardless of division? He entered the 2009 season 53 wins ahead of the next-closest competitor.
- Colt’s now 19th in FBS career wins at 33 (based on the records I could find of the 250 top QB’s I could think of). His next win moves him to 16th. 2 wins put him in the top 10. 4 wins put him in the top 5. 9 more wins puts him in a tie for #1.
- Still blows my mind that we led the nation in sacks last year, both in per game and in total #. The year before we were 54th. Zero against ULM wasn’t awesome.
- Texas lost more games (28) in my first 5 undergraduate years (1985-1989) than they have in Mack’s first 11+ seasons (26).
- 101,096 fans attended the game against ULM (or bought tickets—no idea which is true). That’s 21,625 more fans than the stadium officially held in 1998. At $65 a pop, that’s $1.4 million more just on ticket sales—not factoring in all the other things people spend money on at games. Is it really that surprising that Mack is paid more than any UT prof?
- UT’s longest non-conference winning streak was 15, from 1945-48. Our current streak is 14. Granted, quality of opponent has a small impact.
- Why are we playing in Wyoming?
- 3 BCS Bowl wins in the past five years for Texas. That’s awesome.
- It’s easy to write off the value of Mack’s 10-win seasons streak as far as historical context—more games are played now than in the 60’s, so comparing Mack and DKR with that kind of stat is silly. But comparing Mack to his current peers is more reasonable. 20 teams (including Texas) hit 10 wins last season (2008). 11 did it in both 2007 & 2008. 7 did in 2006-2008. 4 did it in 2005-2008. 3 did it 2004-2008. 2 did it from 2003-2008. 2 did it from 2002-2008. Only Texas has done it from 2001-2008. If I were easy, we wouldn’t be alone.
- Texas is 17-3 against AP top 25 teams since 10/16/04. That’s just amazing.
- 143 straight weeks in the AP poll. I remember being psyched when Texas got into the AP poll and made ESPN sportscenter during my undergrad years. "It’s good for recruiting!"
- 8 Straight top 15 finishes. Six of those in the top 10. From 1984-1997 we had two top 15 finishes, 12th in 1990 and 14th in 1995. 114 weeks in the top 10 of the AP poll since Mack arrived, after only 16 weeks in the top 10 during the previous 12 seasons. These are the glory days.
- 84,100 season tickets sold this year. The most-attended game before Mack arrived was 83,312 vs Notre Dame in 1996, and the most season-tickets sold were 39,743 in 1997. Crazy. The avg home attendance record was 79,715 set in 1984. If we average 101k this season, as seems likely, you’re looking at about 20k*$460 in tickets—so at minimum $9.2 million more in ticket sales than the record pre-Mack.
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