On page 235 of this year's Texas Football media guide, you will find them listed -- those 28 men who have served as head coach of the Texas Longhorns.
And when the kickoff comes Saturday night against North Texas, Mack Brown will step into elite company in terms of tenure.
Only four other coaches: Clyde Littlefield (7 years, 1927-33), D. X. Bible (10 years, 1937-46), Darrell Royal (20 years, 1957-76) and Fred Akers (10 years, 1977-86) have spent more than six years at the Texas helm.
And for Mack Brown, who came to Austin for the 1998 season, this is year number seven.
And in the storied history of Texas football, Brown's numbers are amazingly similar to the four others, two of whom are in the National College Football Hall of Fame. Brown's teams in six years are 59-18, good for a winning percentage of 76.6 percent.
In his first six years, Royal's teams were 48-14-3, a winning percentage of 76.2. Littlefield was 40-13-4 (76.4), Bible 33-23-2 (58.6) and Akers 55-16-1 (77.1).
That said, let's make one thing abundantly clear: as successful as the program has been for the last six years, Mack Brown is far from satisfied.
"We have accomplished a lot," he says, "but we still are short of our ultimate goal: to win all of the games."
Noble thought, that.
In the last eighty years of Texas football, that has happened only twice, in Royal's National Championship seasons of 1963 and 1969. Even the 1970 team, which also was named National Champion by several recognized polls of the time, lost its final game.
It is interesting, and probably means absolutely nothing, how the number "7" seems a common thread on Brown's predecessors. Littlefield, one of the most storied athletes in early Texas history, got the job in 1927, and moved exclusively to coaching track after his seventh season in 1933.
Bible was hired with much-ado in 1937, when The University of Texas decided to pay him more money than the university president to come from Nebraska. It was a big deal at the time, in the age before the job vaulted into a new level of high profile. Mr. Bible, who had experienced immense success at both Texas A&M and Nebraska before coming to Texas, retired to the Athletics Director's job after the 1946 season.
Royal changed the face of Texas football when he came in 1957, then followed Bible's path to an AD's chair after the 1976 season. In 1977, Akers became the coach, and in the twilight of his career that ended in 1986, Texas began disappearing from the national college football landscape.
What Brown has done, in his six seasons, is orchestrate a return to glory.
The seniors who take the field against North Texas in the season opener are part of a program that is tied with Ohio State (and just behind Miami and Oklahoma) for the third winningest among NCAA Division 1A teams in BCS conferences.
The Longhorns under Brown have finished in the nation's‚s top 12 four straight times, the first time that has happened since Royal's teams did it 1961-64. Texas has won 10 or more games three straight times for the first time in school history. And while you can make a case that, in the early years, regular seasons consisted of only 10 games, it is also true that in those days, recruiting was unlimited.
As Mr. Bible began rebuilding the Texas program, his 1938 freshman class consisted of 128 players. Today's limit is 25, but a cap of 85 usually brings that number down to between 18 and 20.
The biggest change of all, however, has come with the formation of the Big 12 Conference. Since the league was formed in 1996, Texas has the best record of any team in the South Division, better than its traditional rivals Oklahoma and Texas A&M. But what has also happened with the coming of the league is the increase in the caliber of competition.
In its best days, the Southwest Conference, on a national level would have Texas, and maybe one other contender.
National rankings were not a factor in Littlefield's day, and in the Bible era, TCU and Texas A&M were both significant, with the Frogs winning the National Championship in 1938 and Texas A&M in 1940.
In 1959, Royal's third season, Texas, TCU and Arkansas tied for the league title and all finished in the Top 10 in the final AP poll. But that was the end of an era. From there, only Texas and Arkansas contended, with a cameo appearance by SMU in 1966 and Houston and Texas A&M in 1976.
During Akers' time, Houston, Arkansas, and the scandal-ridden SMU program entered the picture. Until Brown put Texas in the final top 10 in back-to-back seasons in 2002 and 2003, the Longhorns last finish in the Top 10 came in 1983.
With the resurgence of Oklahoma, the Big 12 has brought together in one league some of the nation's top football teams. In Brown's time, Big 12 opponents have been ranked nationally 18 times out of 48 games. Kansas State, Colorado, Nebraska, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma have at least one time or another finished, along with Texas, in the nation's Top 10.
So the challenge is big, but so is the resolve.
What Brown, his coaches and his team know most of all is that to win all the games, you have to win the first one. And North Texas has represented its league in a bowl game each of the last two seasons, and the Mean Green is picked to win their conference again.
So if the seventh season is to be that long-awaited magical year, it had best begin at the beginning. For the first time in over 30 years, Texas has consistently put itself back in the national football picture.
Brown and his program have put themselves in rare air, among the greatest names in Texas football history. That is an accomplishment, and one not to be taken lightly.
Now, the quest is for the goal.
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