In the long history of the storied Oklahoma-Texas football rivalry, it has been rare for one team to come into the game as an overwhelming favorite to take home the Golden Hat -- the gold-plated, 10-gallon cowboy hat awarded to the winner of the classic game played in Dallas the second weekend in October every year.
When the Sooners and Longhorns meet on the gridiron for the 122nd time on Saturday at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, top-ranked Texas will come into the game as anywhere from a 7.5 to 9.5-point favorite over unranked, but once 11th-ranked, Oklahoma. That certainly might not sound like an overwhelming point spread, but the way these two teams have performed through four games couldn't be more diametrically different, leading many Sooner fans to fear that Saturday's game could easily go sideways and that a single-digit loss might be a blessing.
The No. 1 Longhorns' four straight wins to begin the season include impressive victories over then-No. 1 Ohio State, as well as a big road win two weeks ago at No. 17 Tennessee. In contrast, although there were high expectations for the 2026 edition of Brent Venables' Oklahoma Sooners entering the new season, the reality has been a much different story.
Hard to believe we're even saying this about a program that built its national reputation on producing explosive, powerhouse offenses, but the past couple of seasons, the Oklahoma offense has sputtered and struggled to get out of its own way. The Sooner offense was among the country's worst last season, and four games into the 2026 season, things have gotten progressively worse, not better.
Oklahoma currently ranks 120th out of 138 FBS teams in total offense and finds itself living in the same neighborhood as teams like Eastern Michigan and Middle Tennessee State.
For the second straight season, the Oklahoma defense remains one of the best in college football, but the ineffectiveness of the offense is also beginning to take a toll on the Sooners' elite defense.
At a time when the hope and confidence of the OU fan base toward its beloved Sooners might be at their lowest entering OU-Texas week, it seems like a good opportunity to point out what happened in 1996 under a similar set of circumstances.
1996 is a reminder that anything can happen when Oklahoma and Texas meet
The 1996 season was a time of transition for Oklahoma and the former Big Eight Conference. The Sooners were introducing a new head coach, John Blake, and were part of a newly expanded Big 12 Conference that had added four teams from the Southwest Conference, including longtime OU rival, Texas.
The Sooners were coming off a 1995 season, under controversial one-and-done head coach Howard Schnellenberger, that was far more troublesome than the 5-5-1 record indicated. The team that Blake inherited had lost its final three games in the prior season by the combined score of 98-10. And the Sooners began Blake's debut season at his alma mater with an 0-4 start, the first time in 35 years an Oklahoma team had opened a season with four consecutive losses.
Worst of all, the Sooners were going into the 1996 Red River Rivalry game with Texas on the heels of a carryover seven-game losing streak. Texas had begun the 1996 season ranked No. 6 in the country, but had fallen to No. 25 in the Associated Press Top 25 after suffering consecutive losses to Notre Dame and Virginia, and took a 3-2 record into its game vs. Oklahoma that season. Nevertheless, the oddsmakers had established the Longhorns as 22-point favorites over the struggling Sooners.
Texas jumped out in front 10-0 after one quarter in the 1996 game. Oklahoma fought back behind freshman quarterback Justin Fuente and running back Demond Parker, and the Sooners scored 13 unanswered points in the second quarter to go out in front 13-10. But the Longhorns punched across a touchdown right before halftime to take a 17-13 advantage into the locker room at the intermission.
Neither team scored in the third quarter, setting up a wild fourth-quarter finish.
Texas extended its lead to 24-13 early in the fourth quarter on a seven-yard touchdown run by Longhorn Heisman-winning fullback Ricky Williams. OU's Jarrail Jackson returned a Texas punt 51 yards for a touchdown to bring the Sooners within three at 24-21.
The Oklahoma defense got the ball back for the offense with 4:26 to go in the game. On the ensuing possession, the Sooners advanced the ball to the Texas 28-yard line, where Jeremy Alexander split the uprights with a game-tying field goal with 2:26 left. That's the way things ended in regulation.
The 1996 season was also the first year for the new overtime rule to avoid games ending in a tie. Each team was afforded an opportunity from the 25-yard line, under normal game rules, until a winner was determined. Oklahoma won the overtime coin toss and elected to play defense on the opening possession.
Texas was held to a loss of one yard after three offensive plays and was forced to kick a 43-yard field goal, giving the Longhorns a 27-24 lead in the overtime session.
On the Sooners' overtime possession, it was all senior running back James Allen. Allen gained 15 yards on three straight running plays. Faced with 3rd-and-5 from the 10-yard line, Fuente threw a screen pass to Allen, who avoided a tackle at the line of scrimmage and rumbled for an eight-yard gain and a first down at the Texas two-yard line. On the next play -- who else? -- Allen took it over the right side of the line and into the end zone for the winning score and a 30-27 Oklahoma upset over the heavily favored Longhorns.
Allen played the game of his career in the surprising Oklahoma win. He contributed 159 of the Sooners' 276 total rushing yards and, of course, the winning touchdown The Sooner offense in that game was credited with 441 total yards, almost 100 more than Texas.
Could the Sooners be so lucky or Sooner Magical in front of 95,000 raucous fans, split right down the middle at the 50-yard line at the sold-out Cotton Bowl on Saturday? Stranger things certainly have happened in this classic college football rivalry.
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