Since 1920, Texas, OU have met in the middle
DALLAS (AP) - Darrell Royal is still quick with a quip, and few things get him rolling more than the Texas-Oklahoma game.
Now 82, Royal has perhaps the most unique perspective of the rivalry. A star player at Oklahoma in the 1940s, he coached at Texas for 20 years, making such a mark that the campus stadium now carries his name.
Even though he left the sidelines long ago, Royal is as eager as ever for the 101st edition of this border-state grudge match Saturday. He was practically waiting for his phone to ring this week for the chance to share memories of one of the greatest spectacles in college football.
"I can't be any more worked up for a game I did the first year," he said, "or the last year. You're worked up every year."
Other rivalries compare or maybe even exceed this one in stature. But this game has 'em all whupped when you factor in the atmosphere.
Played in Dallas every year since 1929, and in the Cotton Bowl since it opened in '32, the game embodies the concept of a neutral site. It's held about a three-hour drive from each campus with the fandom split 50-50, right at midfield.
Crimson-clad Sooners fans ring the south end, with their mascot, the horse-drawn Sooner Schooner wagon, patrolling the area. Longhorns faithful give the north end a burnt orange tint with their mascot, a real Texas longhorn named Bevo, keeping an eye on things. The result is a burst of color that still gives goosebumps to anyone who has ever walked out the tunnel and soaked it in.
Outside the building, the biggest state fair in the country is going full throttle. The smell of corny dogs, turkey legs and even the nearby livestock arena waft over the crowd, which often includes a bird's-eye view from riders on the Texas-sized Ferris wheel, albeit for only a few seconds at a time.
Afterward, the carnival midway and its many beer stations provide the perfect place for winners to celebrate and losers to drown their sorrows, providing folks aren't still hung over from parties around town the night before. That scene is much tamer than it used to be, but Dallas police usually still wind up making more arrests than on a typical Friday night.
"It's one of the unique classics," former longtime Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer said. "One of the five best games in college football history."
Oh, yeah, one more thing. The football is darn good, too.
The Longhorns or Sooners have been ranked coming into their early October matchup all but five times since 1945. With Texas ranked No. 7 and Oklahoma at No. 14, this will be the sixth time in seven meetings that both are among the top 15.
This year's game also will be the 10th to feature the reigning national champion. And there's a good chance one of these teams will win the Big 12 South for the eighth straight year.
"You really want to say (to players), 'You understand the magnitude of what you're doing and seeing here?"' said Texas coach Mack Brown, who was indoctrinated as Switzer's offensive coordinator in 1984, when the No. 1 Longhorns and No. 3 Sooners tied at 15.
"This is a sense of history," Brown added. "That makes it fun."
The schools began playing in 1900 and met every year through 1917. The Sooners probably hurried home from Austin after the game in '07 - Oklahoma became a state the very next day.
Everyone realized the game made a great road show early on, taking it to Oklahoma City in 1905-06, Dallas in '12 and Houston in '13.
The game moved to Dallas permanently in 1914, although nobody knew it at the time. The big story then was that it was their first meeting as members of the Southwest Conference, a league both helped start that year. (Oklahoma left in 1920 and the schools wouldn't become conference rivals again until the Big 12 started in 1996.)
In 1915, both teams came in unbeaten and unscored upon, and it was the debut game for a new stadium on the fair grounds. It drew 11,000 fans, the most ever for a football game in Texas. They got their money's worth as the Sooners won 14-13.
The series got choppy after the 1918 game was canceled because of an influenza epidemic; Texas even started a series against Vanderbilt at the state fair in the 1920s.
When the Commodores pulled out after '28, the Longhorns needed a replacement. The Sooners weren't the shoo-in you might think.
"We couldn't get anyone else," Texas athletic director Theo Bellmont said at the time, according to "Here Come The Longhorns," the definitive book on UT sports.
Whether Bellmont was engaging in some Roaring '20s-style trash talking is left to the imagination. Regardless, a tradition was reborn and is still going strong, with Saturday's game the 78th straight in Dallas.
How much longer it lasts is a question nobody wants to answer.
With a contract expiring in 2010, many are already viewing this game as the fifth-to-last of its kind. It could move to Arlington and the new stadium being built for the Dallas Cowboys, but it wouldn't have the s
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