Ohio State football starts its defending national championship tour with a tall task against No. 1 Texas, who comes into Ohio Stadium for a top-ranked matchup to open up the 2025 college football season.
The Buckeyes and the Longhorns are quite familiar with each other, having last met in January’s College Football Playoff Cotton Bowl semifinal for a trip to the CFP championship game.
But their Week 1 game, considered a “Game of the Century” matchup thanks to their preseason Coaches Poll rankings, is the first regular meeting between two of college football’s bigger brands in almost two decades.
The Buckeyes and Longhorns are slated for a noon ET kickoff on Saturday, Aug. 30 in Columbus, and are being featured as part of Fox’s “Big Noon Saturday” Game of the Week. The quarterback matchup is a highly anticipated one, as it features two players making their debuts as full-time starters in Ohio State’s Julian Sayin and Texas’ Arch Manning.
Here’s a look at the series history between Ohio State and Texas:
Ohio State-Texas series history
Saturday’s meeting between Ohio State and Texas will mark the fifth all-time meeting between both programs, and the second in six months, as both met in the Cotton Bowl during the CFP semifinals on Jan. 10.
Additionally, the last time that both teams met in the regular season was in Week 2 of the 2006 season, when Ohio State defeated defending national champion Texas 24-7 in Austin. That 2006 meeting was also considered a “Game of the Century,” with Ohio State as the top-ranked team in the country and Texas at No. 2.
Ohio State record vs Texas
Using Ohio State’s 2024 record book as a reference, the all-time series between Ohio State and Texas is tied at 2-2, thanks to the Buckeyes’ 28-14 win over the Longhorns in January.
The first meeting between the two programs came in 2005 at Ohio Stadium. Trailing 23-22 in the winding seconds of the game, Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith was sacked in the Buckeyes’ end zone for a safety to give the Longhorns the 25-22 win at The Shoe.
Ohio State evened the series at 1-1 a year later, when the Buckeyes traveled down to DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium for the tail end of the home-and-home series. Former Buckeye wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez finished with 142 receiving yards on eight catches with a touchdown.
The first postseason matchup between two of the preeminent college football brands came in the 2009 Fiesta Bowl. Former Buckeyes running back Daniel Herron took a 15-yard carry into the end zone to put Ohio State up 21-17 with 2:05 remaining, but — much like the first meeting between both programs — Texas took a 24-21 lead with 16 seconds left following a 26-yard touchdown connection between Longhorns quarterback Colt McCoy and receiver Quan Cosby.
In both programs’ last meeting, the Buckeyes didn’t break the game open until the fourth quarter, when former Ohio State’s Jack Sawyer delivered the winning play with an 83-yard scoop-and-score on a strip-sack of former Buckeyes quarterback Quinn Ewers in the fourth quarter.
Ohio State vs Texas football game results
Here’s a game-by-game breakdown of how past Ohio State vs. Texas games have played out:
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State vs Texas football record, history between Buckeyes, Longhorns
Reporting by John Leuzzi, USA TODAY NETWORK / The Columbus Dispatch
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