The Oklahoma-Texas football rivalry will probably never head a nationwide list of the best active college football rivalries, but that's only because the people who put together those lists have probably never attended a Red River Rivalry game in person.
The one thing that makes the Oklahoma-Texas football rivalry stand out from all others is the unique setting in which the annual game is played. For the past 94 years, the game has been played at the historic Cotton Bowl in Dallas on the fairgrounds of the State Fair of Texas. The stadium is split down the middle at the 50-yard line, with Oklahoma fans occupying one half of the stadium and fans of the Longhorns filling the other half.
Given the national reputation and historical success of the two highly acclaimed football programs, the games are always emotionally charged and typically hotly contested. In fact, 44 times in the Associated Press Top 25 era (since 1936), Oklahoma and Texas have both been nationally ranked at the time the game was played, and 11 different times the two teams have been ranked in the top five.
With the extreme passion and fierce competitive spirit that is deeply embedded on both sides of this rivalry, it takes just the slightest provocation or disparaging comment from either side to become added motivation to go above and beyond the call of duty for the other.
Transfers between Oklahoma and Texas have caused more intrigue for Red River Rivalry
Former Texas wide receiver Parker Livingstone switched allegiance this offseason, crossing the Red River to join forces with the Longhorns' biggest rival. That move not only ruffled some feathers among the Texas fan base, but set up an intriguing set of circumstances when Livingstone takes the field at the Cotton Bowl this season wearing a Sooner uniform one year after catching a couple of passes for Texas and gracing the opposite sideline in last season's Red River Rivalry.
As if that wasn't enough added incentive that both sides could draw from, Longhorn head coach Steve Sarkisian decided to throw some more gasoline on that fire at SEC Media Days. Discussing the transfer of several key contributors on offense, including Livingstone, from last season's roster, Sarkisian acknowledged those moves were precipitated by the need to create cap space to bring in even better players from the transfer portal.
"I think in this day and age of the portal and high school (recruiting), you've got to have the ability to be strategic," Sarkisian said. "To make the moves we make, to bring in a Cam Coleman (WR from Auburn), to bring in a Hollywood Smothers (RB from North Carolina State), to bring in a Raleek Brown (RB from Arizona State), to bring in a Mike Masunas (TE from Michigan State), we had to let DeAndre Moore go. We had to let Parker Livingstone go. We had to let Tre Wisner go. We had to let CJ Baxter go."
Texas lost over 1,500 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns when it let Moore and Livingstone walk. But what it did was free up enough money to sign Coleman, the No. 1 wide receiver in the portal.
With that controversial and ill-advised admission by Sarkisian, I can imagine that Livingstone and his new Oklahoma teammates can't wait to get to Dallas on Oct. 12 and prove his former head coach wrong.
While Oklahoma has a former Longhorn on it 2026 roster, Texas can boast the same with regard to a former Sooner, who also will likely see action against his former teammates in this season's annual rivalry game. Hollywood Smothers comes to the Longhorns after an impressive two seasons at North Carolina State, where he produced a combined 1,510 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns and averaged more than 6.0 yards per carry. Before that, however, he was recruited by and played at Oklahoma as a member of the Sooners' 2023 class. Smothers played in four games for OU in 2023 and gained 42 yards on 11 carries.
In this new era of college football in which NIL and the transfer portal have completely changed the landscape and the competitive balance of the sport, it is still an extremely rare occurrence for a former Sooner player or a Longhorn player to switch sides and don the jersey of the archenemy.
Casey Thompson, son of former Oklahoma quarterback Charles Thompson, started his college career at Texas and started for the Longhorns in 2021. He eventually ended up at Oklahoma for one final season in 2024, but only after brief stops at Nebraska and Florida International, courtesy of the transfer portal. The Sooner legacy only saw action in one game in the 2024 season.
More recently, former Texas wide receiver Brenen Thompson saw limited action on offense in one season as a Longhorn and transferred to Oklahoma after his freshman year in 2022. He spent two seasons as a Sooner, but mostly in a reserve role, before transferring to Mississippi State for one final season.
The most famous name involved in a change of allegiance and sides in the Oklahoma-Texas rivalry, of course, was Darrell Royal. A native Oklahoman and First Team All-America quarterback at Oklahoma under Bud Wilkinson in the late 1940s, Royal became the head coach of the Sooners' archenemy in 1957. He remained in that role until 1976. During that time, Royal also took on the role of Texas athletic director, which he held from 1962 to 1980, and Texas' football stadium is even named afte
In Royal's first season as Texas head coach, in 1957, Wilkinson's top-ranked Oklahoma team defeated his former pupil, 21-7, in the annual Red River showdown. Texas proceeded to win eight consecutive times after that and ended up compiling a 12-7-1 record as Texas head coach in the annual rivalry game with Oklahoma. In the 24 years he was employed by the University of Texas, the Longhorns were 15-8-1 against the Sooners.
Back in March, an article in Longhorns Wire ranking Texas' 2026 opponents from toughest to easiest caught some wide attention, particularly in Norman, where it may have struck the Oklahoma players and certainly Sooner fans as disrespectful in the least and fighting words at best.
The article acknowledged that the 2026 Oklahoma team may be the best one under Brent Venables and that "Sarkisian and company will have their hands full in Dallas." Regardless, the Sooners were projected as the fourth-toughest opponent Texas will face this season behind LSU, Ohio State and Texas A&M. Texas defensive end Colin Simmons also said over the offseason that he considers Texas A&M a better rival than OU.
Ask any Oklahoma fan, any season, what is the most important game on the schedule and the game you want to win the most, the answer invariably will be the rivalry game with Texas. The Sooner players will tell you the game in Dallas against the hated Longhorns is the most physical, hardest fought, and most emotionally draining game they will play in all year. Oklahoma plays big games and a tough schedule virtually every season, especially now as a member of the SEC. The Texas game will always stand out as the premier game on the schedule.
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