Red River Showdown: OU-Texas rivalry one of college football’s best
By Chip Rouse
The annual Red River Showdown between Oklahoma and Texas is one of the oldest, most celebrated and hotly contested rivalries in college football.
Like most of the top rivalries in college sports, these two schools immensely dislike each other, and nowhere is that more apparent than on game day at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, on the second weekend in October during the Texas State Fair, where the 92,000-seat stadium is filled to the max and then some and equally divided between crimson and burnt orange, the team colors of the two schools.
This year’s game marks the 113th renewal of this intense football rivalry series, which began in 1900. Texas won that inaugural game, 28-2, and seven of the next nine after it. Texas is the only Big12 school with an all-time winning record over the Sooners.
The Longhorns are 61-46-5 against Oklahoma in the Red River rivalry series. Since the end of World War II in 1945, however, the series is all square, at 35-35-3, and over the last 20 years, Oklahoma has come out on top in 12 of the 20 games.
The first 14 years if the OU-Texas rivalry, the games were contested in either Austin or Norman, except for 1905-06, when the game were played in Oklahoma City. The game has been played in Dallas since 1912, except for 1913 (Houston), 1922 (Norman) and 1923 (Austin). Since 1932, the game has been played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas during the Texas State Fair.
It is one of the most unique environments in all of college football, with half the stadium wearing the colors of Oklahoma and the other half decked out in the Texas school colors. The fans of the two teams are literally divided at the 50-yard line wrapped around half of the stadium.
Dallas was chosen as the site for the annual Oklahoma-Texas game principally because it sits approximately equidistant from both campuses.
The largest victory margin in the series is 52 points. The Sooners defeated Texas 65-13 in 2003. with Jason White completing 17 of 21 passes for 290 yards and four touchdowns and Renaldo Works rushing for 112 yards. Oklahoma also hung a 50-0 defeat on the Longhorns in Norman in 1908, only its second win over Texas in the first 11 games between the two schools. The Longhorns promptly returned the favor, winning 30-0 the following year in Austin.
The longest winning streak in the Red River Showdown rivalry is eight games by Texas from 1940 to 1947. Oklahoma produced a six-game winning streak under Bud Wilkinson between 1957 and 1957.
In the modern era of Oklahoma’s legendary head coaches, Bob Stoops has the best record in the Oklahoma-Texas rivalry, with 11 up and seven down. Barry Switzer was 9-5-2 in Red River rivalry games. Wilkinson was just 9-8 against Texas in his 17 seasons at the helm.
The winner of the Oklahoma-Texas game every season is awarded the Golden Hat, a golden replica of a 10-gallon cowboy hat. The Golden Hat Trophy is kept every year by the winning school’s athletic department. Oklahoma has won the Golden Hat three of the past four year.
Information for this article was sourced from the 2018 Oklahoma Football Media Guide.