Cotton Bowl Stadium will be filled to the gills on Saturday for the annual gridiron reunion between Oklahoma and Texas, otherwise known as the Red River Rivalry. The historic venue located on the grounds of the State Fair of Texas in Dallas has been the neutral site of this game since 1932.
Half of the 92,100-seat stadium will be resplendent in the crimson colors of the Sooners and the other half heavily adorned in burnt orange. You can't get more neutral than that.
Does it matter for OU or Texas to be the home or visiting team in Red River Rivalry?
Because this annual rivalry game is played on neutral turf, the two schools alternate which team serves as the designated home team. The way it has worked out is that Texas is the home team in odd years, including the game this season, and Oklahoma serves as the home team in even-numbered years. This has been the arrangement since 1932, when the Cotton Bowl became the permanent site of the game.
Oklahoma will wear its traditional white road uniforms on Saturday as the designated visiting team. Since the 2000 season, the Sooners are 8-4 as the visitors, which also assigns them to the sidelines on the east side of the field facing the afternoon sun. As the home team in even-numbered years, Oklahoma is 9-4 since 2000.
Here's the encouraging stat if you're an Oklahoma fan. The Sooners have won the last four Red River Rivalry games in which they were the visiting team in 2023, 2021, 2019 and 2017. Before that stretch, Oklahoma won four of five rivalry games against the Longhorns as the home team in 2016, 2014, 2012 and 2010, with Texas winning in 2008, when the Sooners came into the game ranked No. 1 in the country.
Over the long haul, though, there hasn't been a real advantage to being either the home or visiting team in this epic rivalry. Although in terms of wins and losses, over the past five-plus decades, the Sooners have the better record regardless of which uniform combination they wore.
Since Barry Switzer took over the coaching reins at Oklahoma in 1973, the Sooners are 13-12 as the visiting team in Dallas and slightly better, at 14-10, when they wore their home jerseys.
Both Switzer's Oklahoma teams (16 Red River Rivalry games in 1973-88) and the OU teams under Bob Stoops (18 seasons in 1999-2016) fared much better when the Sooners were the home team. Switzer was 6-1-1 in those situations, while Stoops' Oklahoma teams were 7-2 as the home team.
I'm not sure what all this really means or whether it is truly a positive sign that Oklahoma is the visiting team in this year's game. The one thing we can count on, though, is that the team that plays the best on Saturday will win the game despite everything that has taken place in the past.