End goal may be in sight for Texan football

BY ANDREW UTTERBACK

Podcast Producer

Tarleton State’s football program became a Division 1 team in 2020 and joined the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) in the fall of 2021. The first year, the team went 6-5, then 6-5 again the next season. By 2023, Stephenville saw their team go 8-3. Then in 2024, the Texans finished 10-4, losing in the second round of the playoffs.

Through five games in the 2025 season, the Texans are undefeated at 5-0, with one of those wins a double-overtime victory against Army, a defending FBS conference champion.

There’s something special in Todd Whitten’s team, and students are feeling it every gameday.

The win against Army was without a doubt one of, if not the biggest game, in Tarleton Football history. Army’s 12-2 record in 2024 led them to being AAC champions, and even this year after falling to the Texans 30-27, Army went on to beat Kansas State, making Tarleton’s victory even more impressive to the college football world.

That game gave Tarleton national headline real estate, as they were featured in articles from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, FOX News, CBS Sports, Yahoo News and several other prominent outlets.

It wasn’t a secret that Tarleton was good. But now, the country knows they are serious contenders.

Tarleton currently sits at 4-0 this season and No. 3 in the FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) rankings. This is exactly where Tarleton wants to be right now, but in the grand scheme of the program’s vision, this is a stepping stone.

Tarleton is in the FCS, which is the second highest subdivision of NCAA college football.

Army is in the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision). This is the highest level of college football and home to all of the big-name schools the country knows and loves. Or at least knows.

Tarleton, over the past few years, has expanded Memorial Stadium, their home stadium in Stephenville, to fit 24,000 fans. That’s more than Stephenville’s entire population.

This stadium upgrade, along with locker room improvements, a stronger recruiting pipeline, consistent winning seasons and now a top FCS ranking and a win against an FBS team, create a strong résumé for Tarleton to make an FBS push.

Tarleton’s campus is seeing record-breaking enrollment every year, and Tarleton is the fastest growing university in Texas. This sets them up nicely for a push to the next division of college football, one that would undoubtedly bring a much harder schedule but also more money, national attention and opportunities for players.

College football fans, and especially longtime Texas residents, may have a sense of deja vu with Tarleton’s climb.

The journey of Stephenville’s proud defenders of the purple and white looks similar to that of another purple and white Texas school just an hour and a half northeast.

Texas Christian University (TCU) has a success story that Tarleton has shown glimpses of. The Horned Frogs were members of the Western Athletic Conference from 1996 to 2001, had breakout winning seasons, then won the Rose Bowl to cap their perfect 2010 season and eventually climbed not only to the Big 12 Conference, but also to a national championship appearance at the end of the 2022 season.

Just 40 miles east of TCU, Southern Methodist University (SMU) also used to be part of the WAC, received extremely large investments, worked their way up to the ACC and achieved an 11-3 record in 2024, putting them in first place in the ACC above legacy teams like Miami and Clemson.

TCU’s climb from a lower-level FBS team to a major contender took about a decade, with several conference realignments. SMU’s rise was slower at first after the 1987 ‘death penalty,’ then gained momentum with sudden success beginning in 2019.

These two journeys didn’t happen overnight, and both teams saw changes in coaching, divisions and obviously players before they saw large-scale success.

Tarleton isn’t ready for bowl games right now, but the Texans have proven that they are among the very best in FCS football and hope to make the jump to the big leagues, so to say, in the near future.

As for now, the Texans have their eye on an FCS championship, a victory that would make their FBS vision much clearer.