The Texas Longhorns have been in the SEC for almost three seasons now, and with that, there are not many firsts still lingering for the Longhorns to check off as members of the conference.
However, there are still a few left to be knocked off, and earlier in the 2026 season, one of the remaining firsts was marked off when the Longhorns traveled to Knoxville to face the Tennessee Volunteers.
And this upcoming week, with the Longhorns traveling to Baton Rouge to square off against the LSU Tigers, a matchup that has been brewing for a long time.
The last time Texas made the trip to Baton Rouge in 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the president of the United States, the national champion that season was the Maryland Terrapins, and that season’s Heisman Trophy winner was Notre Dame’s Johnny Lattner.
The gap between the two teams in Baton Rouge was not meant to be that wide, as the Longhorns were set to visit the Tigers in 2020 as part of a home-and-home series after the Tigers came to Austin in 2019.
However, the 2020 game was a casualty of the major changes caused by COVID-19, making 1953 the last time the two teams met in the Bayou State.
Texas was unsuccessful in its last trip to Louisiana, as LSU earned a 20-7 victory 73 years ago. The Longhorns were a member of the SWC at the time, facing the Tigers, who’ve been a mainstay of the SEC since the conference’s creation, in a season-opening nonconference game.
The Longhorns would bounce back following the Week 1 loss, ending the 1953 season with a 7-3 record and were ranked No. 11 in the final AP Poll, while the Tigers struggled following the win, ending the year with a 5-3-3 record.
Now the two teams meet for the first time as conference opponents, with the stakes being much larger than those of the 1953 matchup.
Texas has its College Football Playoff destiny in its hands, sitting with a 7-2 record and ranking No. 6 in the latest CFP rankings. For the Longhorns, the Tigers are their last ranked game of the season, and a win could almost but secure a spot in the postseason.
Meanwhile, LSU doesn’t have the same fortune in controlling its future, hosting this weekend’s game with a 6-3 record and following a major drop in the rankings down to No. 21.
A win for the Tigers would be a major resume booster with a meeting against No. 8 Tennessee awaiting in the second-to-last game, as LSU looks to make its case to be the first three-loss regular-season team to make the playoff.
Saturday marks history as the Longhorns roll into Tiger Stadium for the first time in over seven decades, but it’s more than that, as the matchup holds stakes that could decide the future of the 2026 season for both teams.
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