Setting perfect for Oklahoma-Texas
DALLAS—It’s a perfect setting: Oklahoma and Texas in the middle of the State Fair of Texas on an early fall Saturday with their passionate fans clad in crimson and burnt orange, split 50-50 in the historic Cotton Bowl Stadium.
It’s nice that the game carries some national prominence, too.
For the first time since 2012, both teams are ranked, which means the No. 19 Longhorns enter the annual Red River Rivalry game with the No. 7 Sooners (5-0, 2-0 Big 12) as a Top 25 team for the first time in six seasons.
“This is two of the more storied programs in college football history, and obviously our program has not pulled its weight of late,” Longhorns coach Tom Herman said. “But hopefully we feel like moving forward, we should be able to pull our weight in terms of making sure this game is a big one on a national level, hopefully pretty much every year.” The way it used to be. Both teams were ranked— often in the top 10—for 12 of 13 meetings before the recent drought. The lone exception was 2005, when unranked Oklahoma pounded the No. 2 Longhorns 45-12.
The Longhorns (4-1, 2-0), with their first four-game winning streak since 2013, have a chance now to show if they are ready to be one of the Big 12 heavyweights again.
In the last four years, Oklahoma won three times—each game by five points. Texas had a seven-point victory in 2015, and the Sooners have since won 26 of 27 regular-season conference games and three consecutive Big 12 titles.
Oklahoma blew a 20-0 lead in last year’s game, but won 29-24 after Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield threw a 59-yard TD pass to Mark Andrews in the fourth quarter. That go-ahead score came only a minute after then-freshman Longhorns quarterback Sam Ehlinger had an 8-yard TD for the only Texas lead.
EHLINGER’S EMERGENCE
Ehlinger has thrown for at least 200 yards and a touchdown in the first five games, becoming just the fourth Texas quarterback to do that—and the first in a decade. He hasn’t thrown an interception during the fourgame winning streak.