Oklahoma football: Five unforgettable OU-Texas battles of the last 50 years

1975 — Oklahoma 24, Texas 17

Oklahoma was coming off probation the year earlier and ranked No. 1 in the country. The Longhorns also were one of the country’s best teams, entering the 1975 game at No. 5 in the Associated Press poll.

The Sooners had won the last four games in the series, but the Longhorns came into the 1975 game unbeaten at 4-0 and sporting one of the nation’s best players in running back Earl Campbell.

Both teams ran the run-heavy Wishbone offense, but there was much disrespect that had been building for several years on the Texas side because Sooner head coach Barry Switzer had taken the innovative new offense, which was invented in Texas and introduced by the Longhorns, and polished and perfected it into the most dominating offensive design in college football.

Oklahoma’s Tony DiRienzo kicked an early field goal to take a 3-0 lead and late in the first quarter recovered a Texas fumble in the end zone to increase the lead to 10-0. The Longhorns got on the board for the first time midway through the second quarter on a 38-yard scoring pass from quarterback Marty Akins to Alfred Jackson to cut into the OU advantage at 10-7. That was the way things ended after the first 30 minutes.

The Sooners scored on an nine-yard touchdown run by Joe Washington in the third quarter to put OU up 17-7, but Texas narrowed the margin once again with a scoring drive of its own early in the fourth quarter. Five minutes later the Longhorns drew even at 17-all on a 43-yard field goal by Russell Erxleben that barely made it over the crossbar.

That set up another classic OU-Texas finish. The scored remained tied halfway into the final quarter, when OU’s Horace Ivory took a handoff from Steve Davis and shot through the middle of the Texas defense, racing untouched on a 33-yard touchdown run to regain the lead for the Sooners, 24-17, with five and a half minutes remaining in the game.

The OU defense held up from there, and the Sooners extended their win streak over their archrivals to five games.

Oklahoma held Campbell, who entered the game with a rushing average of over eight yards per carry for the Longhorns, to just 95 yards on 23 carries. But the game was largely decided on turnovers. Texas lost the ball five times (four fumbles and an interception), and the Sooners’ weren’t much better with two fumbles and a blocked punt.