"Prelude to A National Championship"
Top 10 Texas Longhorn games since 1995

Number 1:
Texas 37, #3 Nebraska 27
December 7, 1996 (St. Louis, MS)

As Texas faces another battle against a storied two-time defending National Champion team whom everyone thinks is insurmountable it gives me great pleasure to recall the first Big XII Championship game in which Texas stunned Nebraska and won the Championship. This was my sophomore year at Texas and I remember spilling into the streets with hordes of students stopping traffic and jumping on buses. It was glorious, as hopefully tonight will be!

In one of the biggest upsets of the 1996 college football season and one of the greatest wins in recent UT football history, the unranked and three- touchdown underdog Longhorns stunned No. 3 Nebraska 37-27 to claim the first-ever Big 12 Championship. A career-best 353 yards on 19-of-28 passes by James Brown and 120 yards rushing and three touchdowns by fifth-year senior Priest Holmes helped lead the Longhorns to the stirring win against the two-time defending National Champions in St. Louis. The pivotal play of the game came on a fourth-and-inches call with 2:48 remaining from the Longhorns 28-yard-line. Brown faked the run, rolled left and tossed a pass that TE Derek Lewis took for a 61-yard gain to set up the game-clinching touchdown. Holmes scored from 11 yards out on the very next play and UT pulled off the upset.