Texas, Michigan Agree to Play Future Home-and-Home Football Series

Michigan no longer has the second-winningest program in college football history, Notre Dame, scheduled for any future games, but it replaced the Irish with the third-winningest team in FBS history, the Texas Longhorns.

Texas announced the future home-and-home series with the Wolverines in a news release Wednesday afternoon, saying that the games have been agreed on in principle and now just have to be presented to the university's System Board of Regents:

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The Football program has reached an agreement in principle with the University of Michigan for a home-and-home series in Ann Arbor on Aug. 31, 2024, and in Austin on Sept. 4, 2027, the school announced Wednesday. The agreement will be presented to The UT System Board of Regents for their consideration on Nov. 5-6, 2014.

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If the agreement is passed, these games would become the second and third meetings between Texas and Michigan, barring any matchups in bowl games. Their lone meeting came in the 2005 Rose Bowl, during which Vince Young led Texas to a 38-37 victory on a last-second field goal by Dusty Mangum.

PAUL SAKUMA/Associated Press

"A matchup of this magnitude doesn't come along all that often," said Michigan head coach Brady Hoke in a statement released by the university, "and when it does it's special for both programs and the great fans that support each institution.

"This also is a special series for all fans of college football, and I anticipate great games just like the first contest played between the two programs."

Texas has been particularly aggressive in scheduling nonconference games for the future, Michigan joining programs such as Notre Dame, Ohio State, USC and Arkansas on its slate for the next decade.

As Bryan Fischer of NFL.com points out, however, the one team Texas fans are most eager to see (Texas A&M) is nowhere to be found after leaving the Big 12 and joining the SEC two seasons ago:

It's easy to see a report such as this and find the negatives: that it isn't Texas A&M, that it won't be played for 3,636 days, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Those things are not necessarily unwarranted, but the fact remains that Texas and Michigan just scheduled a home-and-home football series, and in an era of creampuff-filled schedules and hollow neutral field environments, that is a welcome bit of news.

Only 3,636 days and counting!