The greatest annual rivalry game in college football is renewed this Saturday in Dallas as the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners strap it on at the Cotton Bowl, and this year’s game is highlighted by a new book about the game, Mike Shropshire’s Runnin’ with the Big Dogs: The True, Unvarnished Story of the Texas-Oklahoma Football Wars (William Morrow 2006).
Shropshire’s book is rollicking fun, focusing on the classic 1967 game, which is the first game of the series that he covered. However, the author also vividly develops the culture of the game, which involves a blow-out weekend in Dallas each year during which wild-eyed fans of each team continually confront one another. Legendary coaches such as Darrell Royal, Bud Wilkinson and Barry Switzer are a big part of the book, as are current stellar coaches, OU’s Bob Stoops and UT’s Mack Brown. In this recent Wall Street Journal ($) review of the book, Texas Monthly’s Skip Hollandsworth observes the following about the game’s unique setting:
[T]he atmosphere is so combustible that it really makes no sense to play the game in the hometown of either team. So it’s played at a neutral site: the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Which means that on the Friday before the game, Interstate 35 coming south from Oklahoma and north from Austin is jammed with frenzied fans, their cars, SUVs and pickups decorated with either red Boomer Sooner or orange Longhorn flags and their back windows covered with semi-obscene slogans decrying their rival’s ineptitude and lack of — how to put it? — manhood and legitimate parentage.
By the time these fans hit the city limits, horns are blowing and beer cans are flying out the windows. The fans either check into hotels (which are booked months in advance) or they barge into the homes of friends and relatives who have ill-advisedly agreed to let them stay. Soon they’re out again on Dallas’s streets, resuming the horn-blowing and can-tossing. I have some Dallas friends who are so determined to avoid the Texas-OU madness that they don’t just leave town; they leave the state.
When the game finally begins, few of these fans have had any sleep. They’re bellowing at the enemy and clutching the flasks of margaritas that they smuggled into the stadium — and those are just the grandparents. As Mr. Shropshire writes in his very entertaining history of the rivalry: “You’ll find audiences more genteel and reserved at cock fights.”
And Hollandsworth passes along one of his favorite anecdotes about the annual rivalry:
In 1976, Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer and Texas coach Darrell Royal were standing with President Gerald Ford right before the pre-game coin toss. An Oklahoma fan, standing nearby, suddenly yelled: “Hey, who are those assholes with Switzer?”
Who can’t love a game that has included players named Wahoo McDaniel (who later became popular on the pro wrestling circuit), the appropriately-named Joe Don Looney (what was the name of that remote island where he ended up?) and the majestically-named Duke Carlisle? Kick-off is at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Come on Tom, “the greatest annual rivalry in college football”, aren’t you stretching it to the breaking point? A good game and great atmosphere, but not even close to the greatest college football rivalry. There are several other rivalries that come to mind before you get to this one. Additionally, if it’s so great, why is it not being telecast nationwide? There is some concern it might not be shown in the Houston market.
Keith, which rivalries do you think are better? Ohio State-Michigan? No where near the cultural clash that takes place each year in Dallas and it doesn’t have the split stadium, either.
Georgia-Florida? Close, but not quite the history.
Auburn-Alabama? Come on, that’s more like a neighborhood spat than Texas-OU.
Given the location, the weekend nature of the event, the even split of fans, the State Fair, Texas-OU is hard to match.
By the way, when they don’t show Texas-OU in Houston will be when college football is banned from television.
If you have ever attended a UT – OU game, you would understand. Nothing else matches this game for intensity on each play, every year the game is played.
Although my view is far from unbiased, I would agree that OU-Texas (not Texas-OU, Tom) is the greatest rivalry in college football.
The game itself is a classic. The high proportion of Texas kids on OU’s roster makes the animosity between the teams even greater.
But the experience of the weekend with the game played at a (relatively) neutral site, in the middle of a State Fair, with the crowd split right down the 50 yard line makes this rivalry unique. Florida-Georgia is close, with “the world’s largest outdoor cocktail party” being played in Jacksonville, but it is my understanding that the two teams take turns serving as the home team(and get the lion’s share of the tickets).
The OU-Texas game, although great, is only part of the experience. Thankfully, the pre-game revelry has tamed down a bit from when I was in college. No more furniture is being thrown out of the Adolphus and Baker Hotels anymore (after all the rooms facing Commerce Street had steel bars installed). But where else do the local police place into effect a 48 hour rule that all pedestrians must walk in a one way flow down the sidewalk (with violators being arrested and thrown in jail until after kickoff), and bring out the fire hoses to disperse the crowd after midnight? More than one student got to see the game after purchasing a ticket from others incarcerated in the Dallas City Jail.
I took my sons to Dallas last October to see the 100th edition of this classic, in part because I wanted them to experience the scene at and around the Cotton Bowl before the game is moved. My first preference is to keep the game at the Cotton Bowl, decrepit stadium notwithstanding. Playing at another venue in DFW ranks last on my list. If the game must move from the State Fairgrounds, I would vote to make it a home-and-home series. But that would be a sad day for me…..
In addendum, to contradict incorrect information posted by Keith, the game is ABC’s national broadcast this Saturday afternoon.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espntv/espnTopics?topic=Football&watch=CollegeFootball
The regional games are Cal-Oregon and Nebraska-ISU, but are being played Sat night.
Florida-Auburn is Sat afternoon, but will be on CBS.
While I stand by my statement that OU-Texas is not the greatest college football rivalry, I am corrected on the telecast of the game. On last Saturday’s football telecast, ABC advertised it as one of their regional games for this Saturday. That’s where my information originated.