The 1947 Texas Longhorns football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

as a member of the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma an ...

(SWC) during the

1947 college football season The 1947 college football season finished with Notre Dame, Michigan, and Penn State all unbeaten and untied, but the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame were the first place choice for 107 of the 142 voters in the final AP Poll in early December, and re ...

. In its first season under head coach

Blair Cherry Johnson Blair Cherry (August 7, 1901 – September 10, 1966) was an American football and baseball coach. He served as the head football coach at the University of Texas at Austin from 1947 to 1950, compiling a record of 32–10–1. His 1950 Texa ...

, the team compiled a 10–1 record (5–1 against SWC opponents), won the SWC championship, and outscored opponents by a total of 292 to 74. The team lost to SMU and defeated

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

in the

1948 Sugar Bowl The 1948 Sugar Bowl featured the fifth ranked Texas Longhorns and the sixth ranked Alabama Crimson Tide. In the first quarter, Texas scored on a 99-yard touchdown pass form Bobby Layne to Blount, as Texas opened a 7-0 lead. In the second quarter, ...

Bobby Layne Robert Lawrence Layne (December 19, 1926 – December 1, 1986) was an American football quarterback who played for 15 seasons in the National Football League. He played for the Chicago Bears in 1948, the New York Bulldogs in 1949, the Detroit ...

was a consensus selection as the

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

for the 1947 College Football All-America Team. He also finished sixth in the 1947 voting for the

Heisman Trophy The Heisman Memorial Trophy (usually known colloquially as the Heisman Trophy or The Heisman) is awarded annually to the most outstanding player in college football. Winners epitomize great ability combined with diligence, perseverance, and hard ...

. Tackle

Richard Harris Richard St John Francis Harris (1 October 1930 – 25 October 2002) was an Irish actor and singer. He appeared on stage and in many films, notably as Corrado Zeller in Michelangelo Antonioni's '' Red Desert'', Frank Machin in '' This Sporting ...

was also selected as a first-team All-American by the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

(AP). Three Texas players were selected by the AP as first-team honorees on the 1947 All-Southwest Conference football team: Layne at quarterback; Harris at tackle; and

Max Bumgardner Max Andrew Bumgardner (May 13, 1923 – April 12, 2005) was an American football player and coach. After playing college football as an end at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education in ...

at end.

Schedule

Roster

*QB

*DB

Tom Landry Thomas Wade Landry (September 11, 1924 – February 12, 2000) was an American professional football player and coach. He was the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League (NFL), a position he held for 29 seasons. Dur ...

Awards and honors

*Consensus All-American *Sugar Bowl Most Valuable Player

References

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

Texas Longhorns football seasons Sugar Bowl champion seasons

Texas Longhorns football The Texas Longhorns football program is the intercollegiate team representing the University of Texas at Austin (variously Texas or UT) in the sport of American football. The Longhorns compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision ...

{{Texas-sport-stub