The 1960s were so good to Texas that the Longhorns, not Alabama, should’ve been CBS Sports' pick for college football’s best program during Royal’s first full decade on the job.
The sport was a different animal when Royal led the Longhorns to an 86-19-3 record, winning the Southwest Conference five times and claiming national championships at the conclusion of undefeated seasons in 1963 and 1969 than it was in the 2000s when Mack Brown won 110 games (the second-most FBS wins in the decade) and a national championship. It’s on a different planet today, with Steve Sarkisian (whose squad kicks off the 2026 season in 60 days) looking to break through after guiding Texas to a 35-8 record during a three-season run that included two trips to the College Football Playoff and a conference title.
Still, what Royal’s program accomplished during the 1960s goes beyond the record book. That includes a few painfully close calls that would’ve added more hardware to the trophy case had things broken a different way.
The 1961 Longhorns were ranked No. 1 and in the midst of an undefeated season when a controversial hit on All-American running back Jimmy Saxton in a 6-0 loss to TCU derailed what could’ve easily been a run to Royal’s first national title. Texas settled for a 10-1 record and a No. 3 ranking in the final Associated Press poll, scoring a 12-7 win over Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl. It was one of four seasons during the decade in which the Longhorns recorded a top-five finish without claiming a piece of the national title.
Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide benefited from the misfortune of Royal’s Texas teams more than anyone, splitting the 1961 national championship with Ohio State and sharing the crown with Arkansas in 1964. Although the Razorbacks snapped the Longhorns’ 15-game winning streak with a 14-13 win in Austin en route to an undefeated season, the AP and UPI ranked Alabama No. 1 at the end of the regular season, making the Crimson Tide national champions.
Texas made its case to be considered the nation’s best on New Year’s Day, when Tommy Nobis led the defensive charge that denied Alabama’s Joe Namath the end zone on fourth-and-goal late in a 21-17 victory in the Orange Bowl, which was college football's first-ever prime-time telecast. Again, the Longhorns settled for a 10-1 record and a No. 5 final ranking from the AP voters.
But it’s what Royal and Emory Bellard did in 1968 that makes Texas the team of the decade. Implementing the Wishbone after an underwhelming three-year stretch during the 1965 (6-4), 1966 (7-4) and 1967 (6-4) seasons, the decision to put James Street under center during what would eventually be a 31-22 loss to Texas Tech (and an 0-1-1 start to the 1968 season) kickstarted one of the most memorable runs in college football history.
Texas went 9-0 with Street in the driver’s seat of the Wishbone, including a 36-13 rout of Tennessee in the Cotton Bowl to finish with a 9-1-1 record and a No. 5 finish in the final AP rankings, the first year in which the poll conducted a vote after bowl games were played (the UPI followed suit in 1974). Ending the decade with 20 consecutive wins (part of a school-record 30-game winning streak), having President Richard Nixon proclaim the Longhorns as national champions after the historic 15-14 win in Fayetteville over No. 2 Arkansas and handing Notre Dame a loss in a Cotton Bowl game that marked the end of the Fighting Irish’s 45-year self-imposed bowl ban should be more than enough for Texas to secure the “Team of the Decade” label.
The way Bellard and Royal changed offensive football forever with the birth of the Wishbone, however, is what puts the Longhorns over the top as the sport’s top dog in the 1960s. Long after Bryant and Oklahoma’s Barry Switzer adopted the offense to revive their respective programs, Mike Leach and Hal Mumme studied the Wishbone while developing what would eventually become the Air Raid offense.
"One thing with the Air Raid that's very important is to make sure all the skill positions touch the ball," Leach told ESPN's Jake Trotter in 2018. "In the Wishbone, all the skill positions touch the ball. All the skill positions contribute to the offensive effort. From the Wishbone, we drew the concept of distribution."
Almost 60 years after the Wishbone took the game by storm, its influence on modern-day football adds further credence to the idea that from the start of Royal's fourth season through the end of his 13th, Austin, Texas, was home to the best program in college football.
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