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Horns247 will count down the days to the 2017 Texas football season with a series of player profiles, statistics and historic moments that represent each day.

As of today, the number of days remaining until the Longhorns kick off the season against Maryland on Sept. 2 at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium (11 a.m., FS1) stands at...

63.

The number 63 represents 1963, the year Darrell Royal led Texas to the program’s first-ever national championship.

The 1963 season was a campaign where Royal got over the hump after having each of his two previous squads in 1961 and 1962 get close to claiming the crown. Both of those teams reached the No. 1 spot in the Associated Press poll during the regular season, something Texas had only done in two other seasons (1941, 1946) during the poll era prior to Royal’s debut in 1957.

Royal took over a Texas program that had gone three years in a row without a winning season prior to his arrival. The 1957 Longhorns bounced back from a 1-9 season under Ed Price in 1956 to post a 6-4-1 record, climbing to 11th in both national polls before meeting Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl (a 39-7 loss).

From that perspective, what Royal did in trying to get Texas back to respectability only to take the program to never-before-seen heights is exactly what Tom Herman is attempting to do. Herman inherits the keys to the kingdom entering the 2017 season, 60 years after Royal’s first season on the Forty Acres.

The similarities between Royal and Herman are more alike than the comparisons between Herman and Mack Brown. Even though Herman spent two seasons working for Brown as a graduate assistant (1999, 2000), Herman’s path back to Austin that’s got him occupying Brown’s former office more closely resembles the one Royal traveled.

Royal only had three seasons as a Division I head coach when the Longhorns hired him: two at Mississippi State (1954, 1955) and one at Washington (1956). Herman’s only two seasons as a collegiate head coach were the last two he spent running the program at Houston (Herman was 22-4 over the last two years; Royal had a 17-13 record prior to coming to Texas).

When Royal took the Texas job he was only 32 years old. Herman is 42 right now, an age still considered remarkably young to be leading one of college football’s blueblood programs.

Like the three losing seasons Texas endured under Price (10-19-1 from 1954-1956) before hiring Royal, Herman inherits a program that’s gone 16-21 over the last three years under Charlie Strong. Similar to what Royal walked into, none of the three seasons preceding Herman’s first saw the Longhorns post a winning record.

It took Royal three years to win his first conference title (he went on to win or share the Southwest Conference title 11 times in his career), five to reach his first No. 1 ranking and seven to win his first national title. If Herman is able to have Texas win the Big 12 by 2019, reach No. 1 in the polls by 2021 and win the College Football Playoff by 2023, Herman would still be two years shy of his 50th birthday.

That’s obviously a case of putting the cart well before the horse. However, if Herman guide Texas to a resurgence similar to the one Royal did, the Longhorns could be getting ready to enter another golden age of football.

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