1900-1910

By 1900, Texas football had become such an established part of University life that the Board of Regents was called upon to settle a dispute over what colors the team should wear on the field. The 1898 coach, David Farragut Edwards, had adopted orange and maroon as the team's colors, a move which caused consternation among many fans, some of whom wanted gold and white, others supporting orange and white. The Regents settled the matter in 1900, declaring orange and white as the official team colors and also authorizing the formation of a marching band that year. A writer for the new student newspaper, The Daily Texan, would refer to the team for the first time as "The Longhorns" in 1904.

As for the team itself, the turn of the century marked a new era for UT football. A group of football supporters helped the University raise $3,000 to purchase a track of land just east of the University, which was subsequently named Clark Field in honor of George B. Clark, who served as the campus auditor, librarian, registrar, secretary of the faculty, and campus caretaker. The new field made the team more central to the University’s identity and allowed students easier access to the games. The turn of the century also marked a new era of truly collegiate football for Texas, as it was decided that UT would only compete against other colleges after a bloody brawl had broken out at the end of the 1899 game against the Dallas town team. As had been the case in the 1890s, there continued to be a high turnover rate in the coaching staff in this decade. Six different coaches served between 1900 and 1909, although the team had a winning season every year. One of those six coaches—who’d won every game that year except A&M—opined that he thought the Austin fans were a mite too picky when it came to coaches.

Although UT’s football team was just coming into its own, concern was growing in the east and other parts of the United States about the violence of collegiate football. Theodore Roosevelt, American president from 1901-1908, grew so upset at the high number of deaths and crippling injuries in the collegiate game (no one wore helmets or pads in those days) that he called a national conference of college officials to discuss the game’s future. As an outspoken advocate of the “strenuous life,” Roosevelt didn’t want to ban the game, but he felt that some kind of centralized reform effort was needed. The result was the founding of the NCAA in 1904 and the introduction over the next several years of rudimentary helmets, shoulder pads, and the forward pass in an attempt to make the game safer.

Sadly, no UT game programs have been found for this decade.