2004 Texas Longhorns football team The 2004 Texas Longhorns football team represented the University of Texas at Austin in the 2004 NCAA Division I - A football season . The team was coached by head football coach Mack Brown and led on the field by quarterback Vince Young . Ranked third in wins in Division I - A college football history , the University of Texas has traditionally been considered a college football powerhouse , but Brown had not managed to lead the Longhorns into a Bowl Championship Series ( BCS ) game . The 2004 season included some controversy related to the selection of Texas as an at - large team to attend the 2005 Rose Bowl . Brown coached the team to win that game with a thrilling last - second victory . The victory brought the Longhorns to 11 wins and 1 loss for the season ( 11 – 1 ) and it earned the Longhorns a top 5 finish in the polls . Season highlights . In 2004 , the Longhorns began the season with a No . 7 ranking nationally and started out with a 65 – 0 blowout of , setting several UT school records in the process . This was followed by a narrow 22 – 20 win against unranked Arkansas . They defeated Rice and Baylor 35 – 13 and 44 – 14 respectively . This left them ranked fifth coming into the annual matchup with then No . 2 Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout . Oklahoma shut - out the Longhorns 12 – 0 . Texas dropped to No . 9 , before rebounding with wins over No . 24 Missouri 28 – 20 , at No . 24 Texas Tech 51 – 21 , and at Colorado 31 – 7 . Then Texas set a record for the largest come from - behind - win in school history , beating No . 19 Oklahoma State 56 – 35 after falling behind 7 – 35 . After this performance , Texas again fell behind against Kansas but squeaked out a win 27 – 23 . The Kansas coach stirred up controversy by claiming that the officials were biased in favor of Texas . This brought UT back up to No . 5 in the rankings as they welcomed arch - rival Texas A & M to Austin and won 26 – 13 . However , Oklahoma stood undefeated , which meant the Sooners would represent the Big 12 South in the Championship game against a much lower ranked team from the North Division . Once again , the loss to Oklahoma had kept Texas out of playing for a National or Conference Title , and had seemingly destined them to a non - Bowl Championship Series bowl as well . However , Brown began lobbying the voters in the two polls based on human voters ( one on college football coaches , the other on Associated Press ( AP ) writers ) to place the Longhorns high enough in the rankings to ensure they received a Bowl Championship Series ( BCS ) bowl - bid . The rules of the BCS were such that Texas might get left out of the eight chosen teams even though they ranked fifth nationally . The No . 4 California Golden Bears won their final regular season game 26 – 16 over 24 - point underdog Southern Miss . Cal did not try to run - up the score at the end of the game . Several AP voters were besieged by fan emails and phone calls attempting to sway their votes , apparently spurred from Brown ' s pleas to rank Texas ahead of other " less deserving teams . " Nine of the 65 AP voters switched Texas ahead of Cal , and three of them were from Texas . In the coaches poll , four voters moved Cal down to No . 7 and two to No . 8 , when the week before none had them lower than No . 6 . Meanwhile , two coaches moved Texas up to No . 3 when the team did not play that week . The " Los Angeles Times " wrote that accusations were raised about coaches manipulated voting , but the individual coaches votes were not released to prove or disprove the allegations . The AP Poll makes its voters ' records public . No . 6 Texas gained 23 points on No . 4 Cal in the AP poll , and the fifth - ranked Longhorns closed 43 points on the fourth - ranked Bears in the coaches poll . That allowed Texas to earn a BCS berth , finishing . 0129 points ahead of Cal in the BCS standings after being . 0013 points behind . In part because of the controversy with Texas ' and Cal ' s BCS ranking , the AP poll withdrew from the BCS after the season . This lobbying effort and ensuing result led to criticism of Brown for playing politics to get his team into a top bowl . Thus , he was no longer criticized for failing to get into a top bowl , he was criticized for doing so ( and the way he had done it ) . Rose Bowl . The appearance in the " Grand - daddy " of all bowl games was the first visit by the Longhorns , due mainly to the fact that the Rose Bowl traditionally pitted the winner of the Pac - 10 against the winner of the Big Ten . Texas ' opponent was Michigan , whom Texas was playing for the very first time . Texas and Michigan each had over 100 years of football history . The meeting of the two teams set a college football record for the most games played collectively by two opponents before facing each other for the first time . Texas won the game 38 – 37 on a last second field goal kick by Longhorn Dusty Mangum in what had been called one of the greatest Rose Bowl games of all time . It was the only time in the history of the Rose Bowl that the game has been decided as time expired off the clock . Vince Young set several Rose Bowl records and also won the Rose Bowl MVP award . After the season . In the NFL Draft that followed , three Longhorns were drafted – RB Cedric Benson went 4th overall to Chicago Bears and Derrick Johnson went 15th overall to the Kansas City Chiefs . TE Bo Scaife was picked in the 6th round by the Tennessee Titans and would be later reunited with quarterback Vince Young With the exception of these players , most of the team returned to play for the 2005 Texas Longhorn football team , including redshirt sophomore quarterback Vince Young . Therefore , expectations were high coming into the 2005 season . At the trophy presentation in Pasadena , Vince Young had proclaimed , " We ' ll be back ! " , referencing the fact that the Rose Bowl was the host for the next year ' s BCS National Championship .