When the month of October hits, it usually means
that football rivalries are renewed, and that the blood runs to a boiling
point, and it spills out onto a gridiron!
Well not sure about the blood boiling part, but can
assure you that the rivalry between schools are alive and well in Texas!
Every Second Saturday of the State Fair Of Texas,
the rivalry between the institutions of the University of Texas and Oklahoma
University, find themselves center stage on the field inside the Grand Dame herself,
The Cotton Bowl!
A stadium in a city that is neutral between Austin,
Texas and Norman, Oklahoma, about 3 hours drive from each school, and the fans,
students, alumni, and just plain football fans show up inside the 90,000 plus
capacity building, to create what merely looks like the Red River running right
down the 50 yard line stripe!
Half the stadium dressed in the Crimson and Cream of
Oklahoma, and the Burnt Orange and White of Texas. The Longhorns and the
Sooners!
They have played this game in Dallas since 1929 and
inside the Cotton Bowl at Fair Park since 1939. These two teams have met for
113 times, a couple of years twice in the same year. 1901 and 1903, in Austin
and Norman each, they didn’t play in 1918, ’20. ’21, for four years from 1924,
thru 1928. The Neutral site of Dallas and the Cotton Bowl will have these two
teams play until 2025, and even though there has been talk about moving it to a
home and home situation, the City of Dallas will most likely make a bold play
to keep these two schools right here in Big D and at the State Fair of Texas
for many more years to come.
However, the rivalry as we once knew it, going back
the last 40 or 50 years or so, is not as intense as it once used to be.
If you are a native Dallasite, and you grew up
during that era, you have memories of Downtown Dallas on the Friday before the
game, with both sides, walking up and down Commerce street, and throwing up the
Hook ‘Em Horns or the other side putting the HORNS DOWN. You would hear “TEXAS!!!!
FIGHT!!!!” or “BOOMER SOONER!!!!”
The masses were made up, mainly of the natives who
would show their allegiances to either school, but most likely, not be either a
student or alum, just a fan!
ON those Friday nights, one could walk up and down
the downtown street, watching police officers in later years, dressed in riot
gear, prepared for the absolute worse, with fights and glass bottles being
thrown or used as weapons, or having people trying to tip over cars. Yes this
is YOUR town going berserk over a football game, that hasn’t even been played
yet.
One could be arrested that night, spend that night
in the city jail just up the block from where the party was going on, at
Commerce and Harwood, and most likely not get out until well pass game time.
That’s where the REAL fun took place. See if you
were smart, you would go into the jail to bail these poor souls out of jail, by
purchasing their game tickets so they could have enough cash to bail out of
jail! WORKED EVER TIME! And at times GOOD SEATS!
As the decades moved passed the 60’s and the 70’s
and a little bit into the 80’s the party sort of ran its course, the crowds were not as rowdy,
they would hold staged “pep rallies’ in the West End of Downtown Dallas, with
the Cheerleaders and the Bands holding court. The crowd would still chant “TEXAS!!!!!!!
FIGHT!!!!!!!” or “BOOMER!!!! SOONER!!!” but that would be about it, no more
fighting among the masses, no more throwing of bottles or using them as weapons.
Those days are long gone!
However the intensity inside the Cotton Bowl hasn’t
changed, the two teams like up inside the tunnel that leads unto the field, and
you can hear the smack talking, and the “jaw jacking” between the two teams,
just before they run out onto the field!
This years game was one that they will be talking
about for years to come, how the Number 7 Oklahoma Sooners came into the Cotton
Bowl undefeated, and looked like the team that would make their way to the
National Championship rounds, and the Texas Longhorns came in at number 19,
with a questionable start to the season against Maryland, then they reeled off
4 wins in a row, including beating Tulsa, USC, TCU, and Kansas State.
So all eyes are now on the Cotton Bowl, where Kyler
Murray the quarterback of the Sooners and a home town football star from Allen
High School in Allen, Texas (just 40 minutes north of Dallas) and transferred from
Texas A&M to Oklahoma, has already signed a baseball contract with the
Oakland A’s, and plans on playing baseball, but until then, he puts on the pads
and the helmet and leads the Sooners. It’s a classic story with all the pomp
and circumstance that goes along with it.
Murray led his high school team to state
championship, led his Eagles to a come from behind victory in the State Semi
Final game against one of the larger inner city schools in Texas, Skyline out
of Dallas ISD.
Down by 20 plus points in the second half, it was
Kyler that put his high school team on his back and led them to the resounding
victory. While in High School he as undefeated in a total of 43 consecutive
games, and THREE ---count them—THREE State Championships while he played there!
The KID doesn’t know how to lose!
Well that is until that fateful day in Dallas, when
another quarterback out of Austin, Texas named Sam Ehlinger stepped up and
showed that he is the leader of the Longhorns and did just that, even though
his team was tied at 45 with the Sooners in the fourth quarter, and a turnover
late in the game by the Sooners gave the ‘Horns a chance, and that’s all they
needed, when they trucked out a Freshman kicker, a Freshman holder, and a
Freshman long snapper onto the field, and from 40 yards out, places the ball
right down Broadway to seal the deal for Texas and beat the Sooners 48-45.
Oklahoma on Sunday after the game, fired defensive coordinator
Mike Stoops (brother of Bob Stoops, former Oklahoma Sooner head football coach)
and will replace him this week. The main reason behind the firing is that the
Sooners defense for the first time gave up not only more points, but also more
total yards by an opposing team, and it was time for them to part company.
Texas jumped 10 spots in the polls from number 19 to
number 9, and the Sooners dropped from number 7 to number 11 and pretty much
out of the top 4 running for the National Championship Playoffs.
There are rivalries that are beloved and dear, to
most people the top three rivalries are Michigan vs Ohio State, Army vs Navy
and Texas vs Oklahoma.
Though there is one rivalry game that isn’t played
anymore, and its because the two schools aren’t in the same conference as they
were for 118 years. Texas vs. Texas A&M. The tradition of that rival game
is one for the books.
You have “Yell Practice” at midnight for the Aggies,
and the “HEX” walk for the Longhorns the Bonfire for the Aggies to show the
BURNING DESIRE TO BEAT VARSITY, and of course the Longhorns fight song
mentioning the Aggies by name, oh and so does the Aggie War Hymn for that
matter. They are the ONLY TWO Schools in the NCAA that DO mention each other in
their respective fight songs!
High Schools have theirs as well, there are times
when the W. T. White Longhorns would play the, THEN, Thomas Jefferson Rebels
(since changed their name to Patriots) Where they once placed a dead cow in the
student parking lot, and placed a Rebel Flag in it! Made their point, there
were others like Dallas Skyline and Dallas Bryan Adams had their rival game, or
Plano and Plano East, the cross town rivals are always the best, what about the
J. J. Pearce and Richardson High School, they are truly about a mile or apart,
and it’s the Back Yard Brawl, or even Lake Highlands and L.V. Berkner and their
battle of the stadium, called the Bone Yard!
Those are great rivalries and they make for great
and intense story lines, and make for great fodder for newspapers and talk
shows, however the real story is how the athletes handle it, and do they remain
friends with their rival after the game, and after the season, and at times
when they might even play for the same team!
Sometimes its just a game! And its Just a thought!
