Oklahoma football: Red River rivalry often showcases high-ranked teams
By Chip Rouse
Ask any serious college football fan to name the biggest and best rivalry games on the planet and, invariably, the annual Oklahoma football border-war slugfest with Texas is right up there near the top.
Army-Navy, Ohio State-Michigan, Auburn-Alabama and Georgia-Florida are some of the others that draw top-of-mind recognition.
What is different about OU-Texas, however — currently referred to as the Red River Showdown — other than the long-standing tradition of dividing the Cotton Bowl stadium equally at the 50-yard line, with half the crowd decked out in the Texas school color of burnt orange and Sooner fans proudly saturating the other half in the color crimson, is the frequency in which one or both teams are highly ranked.
Texas won 38 of the first 60 games in the series, which began in 1900, including eight of the first 10. The Longhorns lead the all-time series 62-47 with five games ending in a tie. Since the end of World War II (1945 to present), however, Oklahoma leads the series 36-35-3, and in the last 20 years, OU is 13-7 against Texas in Red River Showdown games.
Since 1936, the first year of the Associated Press national rankings, one of both teams have been ranked among the nation’s 25 best teams 70 times and on 37 occasions, both teams have been ranked.
In the 19 seasons since 2000, both Oklahoma and Texas have been ranked at the time of the Red River rivalry 14 times. Eight times, at least one of the teams was ranked in the top five.
Thirty-four times since 1936 at least one of the two teams has come into the game ranked on the top-five nationally, and in 10 Red River games either the Sooners (seven times) or the Longhorns (3) were ranked No. 1. Oklahoma won six of the seven times it was the country’s top-ranked team, and Texas held serve in the game all three times it was No. 1 and once when the Sooners came into the game at the top of the rankings (in 2008).
On nine occasions since 1950, both teams have entered the Red River rivalry game ranked in the top five, including in 1963, the last season for legendary Sooner head coach Bud Wilkinson, which showcased No. 1 Oklahoma versus No. 2 Texas, the only time in the 114-year history of game that featured the country’s top two teams.
Oklahoma Sooners Football
Texas gained 239 of its 253 total yards on the ground and recorded four takeaways against top-ranked Oklahoma in 1963 for a 28-7 victory and the Longhorns’ sixth consecutive win over their rival from the Sooner State.
Here are the nine times in the OU-Texas rivalry series when the matchup featured two top-five teams. Two of the games were contested when Wilkinson was the Sooner head coach, four were during the Barry Switzer era at Oklahoma and three were during the coaching eras of Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and Mack Brown at Texas:
1950 — No. 1 Oklahoma vs. No. 4 Texas (OU won 14-13)
1963 — No. 1 Oklahoma vs. No. 2 Texas (Texas won 28-7)
1971 — No. 3 Texas vs. No. 4 Oklahoma (OU won 48-27)
1975 — No. 2 Oklahoma vs. No. 5 Texas (OU won 24-17)
1977 — No. 2 Oklahoma vs. No. 5 Texas (Texas won 13-6)
1979 — No. 3 Oklahoma vs. No. 4 Texas (Texas won 16-7)
2002 — No. 2 Oklahoma vs. No. 3 Texas (OU won 35-24)
2004 — No. 2 Oklahoma vs. No. 5 Texas (OU won 12-0)
2008 — No. 1 Oklahoma vs. No. 5 Texas (Texas won 45-35)
With the annual Red River game being played on a neutral field (the game has been played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas since 1932), the two teams alternate serving as the home team. Oklahoma serves as the home team and wears its home uniform on even-numbered years, and Texas is the home team in odd-numbered years.
Over the last 50 years, there has been only a slight trend favoring the team designated as the home team. Oklahoma is 14-9-2 as the home team over that time frame. Texas is 13-11-1 over the same span wearing its home uniform.
The higher-ranked team generally prevails in this century-old rivalry series, but that hasn’t always been the case, including four times in the last two decades. Since 1936, when one or both teams have been ranked, the higher ranked team has won 54 times, but 14 times during that span, the lower-ranked team has pulled off the upset, including last year’s dramatic 48-45 Texas victory.
Both teams are ranked again this year, with Oklahoma at No. 6, according to the Associated Press (No. 5 in the Coaches Poll), and Texas at No. 11. With this being an odd-numbered year, Texas is the home team for the 115th edition of the Red River Showdown on Saturday.