Oklahoma football: Seven greatest games in modern Oklahoma-Texas rivalry
By Chip Rouse
As every red-blooded Oklahoma football fan knows, there have been many thrilling games in the Oklahoma football rivalry with the Texas Longhorns. Too many to count, really. There have also been humbling blowouts on both sides.
And something else that is very much a part of this century-old classic rivalry, the best team (at least on paper or according to the national rankings) doesn’t always win. You can throw season records and rankings out the window, because they don’t mean much when these two college football bluebloods take center stage on the second weekend in October.
The series dates all the way back to 1900. Texas was dominant in the early years of what is today known as the Red River Showdown. The Longhorns prevailed in 20 of the first 30 games with Oklahoma. The Sooners won nine and there was one tie.
After 42 games, the Texas advantage had swelled to 29-11-2. Because of that early domination, the Longhorns still lead the overall series 62-50-5. Since the 1948 season, however, the second year under legendary head coach Bud Wilkinson, Oklahoma has defeated its longtime archrival 39 times, lost 33 times and battled to a tie in three other games.
During the Big 12 years when Texas’ Mack Brown and OU’s Bob Stoops patrolled the sidelines for their respective teams, the Oklahoma-Texas game most often involved two ranked teams, and numerous times the winner would go on to capture the Big 12 championship.
My lifetime has spanned well more than half of the 117 games in the OU-Texas rivalry, and some of the better games in the overall series have occurred in the Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops eras of Oklahoma football.
Here are the seven best Oklahoma-Texas rivalry games I can recall seeing, in chronological order, all of which have happened in the last 75 years. To get a game summary, click on the link provided:
1963 — No. 2 Texas 28, No. 1 Oklahoma 7
1974 — No. 2 Oklahoma 16, No. 17 Texas 13
1984 — No. 1 Texas 15, No. 3 Oklahoma 15
2001 — No. 3 Oklahoma 14, No. 5 Texas 3
2004 — No. 2 Oklahoma 12, No. 5 Texas 0