Tate fell in love with Texas
Rodney Tate doesn’t know what his star ranking was as a recruit coming out of Beggs High School in 1978.
He doesn’t know if there even were rankings back then.
But he does know he was important enough that when he announced his decision to go to the University of Texas, then Oklahoma Gov. David Boren called his home to try and change his mind.
“Am I in trouble?” Tate said he remembers asking his mother, Wallina, who took the call with Boren.
“No,” she said. “He just wanted you to reconsider going to OU.”
Tate is one of the few in history to leave Oklahoma and go on to play football for the Longhorns.
With Oklahoma and Texas set to square off Saturday for the 113th matchup between the two schools, it appears to be a fairly even contest once again as both teams come in ranked for the first time since 2012.
But in the history of the two schools, the recruiting battles in each other’s states have been a mismatch.
The Sooners regularly have dozens of Texas high school recruits on the roster. This year alone, Oklahoma has 41 players from the Lone Star State.
In the past 40 years, Texas has had just 18 players from Oklahoma.
This season, the Longhorns have two with former Newcastle quarterback Casey Thompson, the son of former Sooner football player Charles Thompson, as well
as former Jenks tight end Reese Leitao on the roster.
For Tate, his choice of Texas wasn’t an easy one, but it wasn’t necessarily tough either.
Coming from Beggs, a town of less than 4,000 people at the time, every recruiting visit he made felt like a grand adventure.
Tate was recruited by teams across the country but used his four official visits to see Arkansas, Oklahoma, SMU and Texas before ultimately signing his letter of intent with UT.
“I came back home from each visit and told my mom that’s where I was going,” Tate said. “Texas just happened to be the last of my visits, and I was blown away with everything there.”
In the town of Beggs, Tate said he got nothing but love and support. But anytime he’d travel away from home,
he heard it from ‘Horn haters.
“How could you choose Texas?” Tate said was the first question asked. “’People would say, ‘You are an Oklahoma boy, born and raised right? How can you leave?’”
That all stopped once he got to Austin. Tate played four seasons for the Longhorns as the change-of-pace running back.
In 1982, he was a fourth-round draft pick by the Cincinnati Bengals, where he played three NFL seasons before returning to Texas to finish his degree.
Tate, 59, is back in Beggs now. He’s worked for the past 13 years helping coach track and football. Last season he was on the sideline as Beggs went all the way to the Class 3A state title game.
The week of OU vs. Texas is still one he gets excited for. He hears it from Sooner friends and co-workers, and he answers them all with a Hook ‘Em Horns.
Tate says he’s always intrigued when an Oklahoma high schooler commits to Texas, curious what swayed him to leave the state for such a heated rival and excited that it adds to the list Oklahoma Longhorns.
“I always have my eye out for the next one,” he said. “I think it takes some courage to make that decision here in the state. But it’s one I think they’ll look back on with pride hopefully.”
Millwood senior De’Mariyon Houston is one that’s set to join the list. The 6-foot receiver announced over the summer that he was committing to Texas.
“I fell in love with the University of Texas,” Houston said. “I feel like they really care about my schooling and life after football and that’s really what was the most important for me.”
Tate coaches a kid that is interested in going to Texas, and he delivers the same advice his mom gave him when he was 17.
“You just go out there and do the best you can,” he said. “You are representing your town and there’s a certain amount of excitement that goes into that. I was nervous to go down there but I feel like I held my own.”