Oklahoma football: Odds already out for what will be final Big 12 Red River Showdown

Betting odds are already out for some of the most anticipated games in college football for next season, and that includes the annual Oklahoma football rivalry game with Texas.

Oklahoma-Texas in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas is one of the oldest and best rivalries in college football every season, and this coming season will be the last of the Red River rivalry games contested under the Big 12 banner.

Beginning with the 2024 season, Oklahoma and Texas will be playing football as members of the SEC, which marks the 2023 game as the end of an era.

These two longtime rivals have played each other 28 times in the 27 seasons the Big 12 has been in existence. Oklahoma owns a 17-11 record over Texas as members of the Big 12, including the 2018 Big 12 championship. Bob Stoops was 11-7 against the Longhorns. Lincoln Riley was 5-1 in the Red River game as OU head coach. Brent Venables was 8-5 against Texas as Stoops’ defensive coordinator, but his is 0-1 as a head coach after a 49-0 drubbing by Texas in last season’s rivalry game.

FanDuel Sportsbook has issued early betting odds for some of the most anticipated games and rivalry matchups on next fall’s calendar and has the Longhorns as a 5.5-point favorite to prevail over Venables and the Sooners for a second consecutive year. John Buhler, who writes about college football for FanSided, has written an article on this subject.

Many of the games in the century-old rivalry between Oklahoma and Texas have featured one if not two ranked teams, including several top-five matchups. Most of the way-too-early top-25 projections that are out for the 2023 season have both teams ranked in the top 25, but with the Longhorns slotted higher than the Sooners in virtually all. And as fans of both teams in this rivalry series well know, being the higher-ranked team does not guarantee a victory.

The Red River rivalry game will continue on an annual basis when OU and Texas are in the SEC.

As Buhler points out, the Las Vegas handicappers are projecting Texas to be a better team than the Sooners for a second consecutive year, but Oklahoma has not lost three games in a row to Texas in this series since 1997-98 in John Blake’s final two seasons as the Sooners’ head coach and Stoops’ initial season in 1999.

During that time period, the Sooners have a five-game, a four-game and a three-game winning streak over the Longhorns.