Plenty to Prove for Both Texas, Oklahoma at BetLM

Plenty to Prove for Both Texas, Oklahoma

DALLAS —Unlike the folks throw­ing soft­balls at weighted-down milk bot­tles or those shoot­ing bas­ket­balls at nar­row rims, Mack Brown and his No. 11 Long­horns are guar­an­teed to have some­thing mean­ing­ful to take home from their trip to the State Fair of Texas this weekend.

Should Texas beat No. 3 Okla­homa in the 106th Red River rivalry, it would be the ulti­mate sign of progress for Brown’s rebuild­ing from a 5–7 season.

Yet, even if the Long­horns lose Sat­ur­day at the Cot­ton Bowl, Brown and his staff will find out a lot more about their squad by see­ing them play the best team in their con­fer­ence, and one of the best in the country.

Brown will learn whether his 4–0 club is really as good as the score­board indi­cated after the last two games—lopsided road vic­to­ries over UCLA and Iowa State—or whether they’re closer to the team that opened the sea­son with a slow start against Rice and needed a late rally to beat BYU by a point at home.

“I want to see us respond,” Brown said.

Com­ing off a year that began with big hopes and wound up being his first los­ing sea­son at Texas, Brown saw turnover at both coor­di­na­tor posi­tions, then changed quar­ter­back early this sea­son. That much change could leave a guy queasy, but it’s quite the oppo­site. The stomach-churning came dur­ing the col­lapse, leav­ing Brown pretty relaxed now that things are start­ing to fall in place.

His calm approach to this game is espe­cially note­wor­thy con­sid­er­ing its impor­tance. Here’s how season-defining it can be: Back when the Big 12 was big enough to have divi­sions (1996–2010), Okla­homa or Texas won the South all but twice, includ­ing the last 11 years.

“There’s no doubt the pressure’s also on them more than us,” Brown said. “I mean, they’re sup­posed to win and we’re get­ting bet­ter. That’s fact, whether you like it or not.”

Given those options, Soon­ers coach Bob Stoops likes it.

Besides, Stoops knows an impres­sive win might be exactly what Okla­homa needs to regain the No. 1 spot it held in the pre­sea­son poll. The Soon­ers have been passed by SEC heavy­weights LSU and Alabama.

“If there’s pres­sure on us, I wel­come it,” Stoops said. “We look for­ward to play­ing it. You’re more than capa­ble of ana­lyz­ing their pres­sure. I’m sure after all they’ve been through there’s pres­sure on them, too. You can dis­card it all you want, but the pres­sure is there. Com­ing into this game, that’s what you want. We want to be in this posi­tion, going after it.”

Held at the Cot­ton Bowl—about 190 miles from each campus—the Texas-OU/OU-Texas game remains one of col­lege football’s great­est pageants. Ask any­one who’s played or coached in the game and they talk about charg­ing out of the tun­nel and into a scene that Brown described as “a bowl game in midseason.”

The sta­dium is split 50–50, burnt orange on one side, crim­son and cream on the other. There’s the car­ni­val atmos­phere for every­one to enjoy on the way in and out, mostly out this year as kick­off is at 11 a.m. And there are the smells. Depend­ing on which way the wind is blow­ing, fans will inhale the aroma of corny dogs and del­i­ca­cies such as fried pra­line sweet potato pop­pers, or the stench of a live­stock arena that’s a short punt away.

“It sort of gets the hair up on the back of your neck,” Stoops said. “It’s exhil­a­rat­ing, I guess is the best way to say it. It’s excit­ing and some­thing you want to feel.”

This spec­ta­cle is so unique and has meant so much to so many gen­er­a­tions (it’s been this way since 1932) that offi­cials from both schools resisted move­ments to drag the games back to their cam­puses or to Cow­boys Sta­dium in Arling­ton. Each of those set­tings might be more prof­itable, but, in this case, tra­di­tion trumped dollars.

It could even be argued that this game helped keep the Big 12 together. The bond between these schools turned out to be stronger than that between Texas and its other big rival, Texas A&M, as the Aggies fled to the SEC, likely end­ing their his­toric series. Their depar­ture set off a realign­ment frenzy nation­wide and threat­ened to dis­solve this con­fer­ence. But after look­ing around, UT and OU decided to stay put, help­ing keep the league intact.

“It’s fair to say that we both com­ple­ment each other really well,” Stoops said. “Maybe one and one doesn’t equal two with the two of us together. It may equal more like four.”

This is the kind of series com­men­ta­tors like to hype by say­ing “you can throw the records out when those teams meet.” Except, lately, the rank­ings have been a good indi­ca­tor of which team is going to win.

The higher-ranked team is 9–2 since 2000, with the upper hand swing­ing back and forth. The Soon­ers won every meet­ing from ’00–04, and by a com­bined score of 189–54. Back then, the pres­sure was mount­ing on Brown, and Vince Young changed every­thing by beat­ing Okla­homa on the way to a national cham­pi­onship in ’05, start­ing a run of four Texas vic­to­ries in five years.

The Soon­ers won again last year, 28–20, with Landry Jones at quar­ter­back. He got into the game as a fresh­man the pre­vi­ous year, when Sam Brad­ford got hurt. Now, he’s return­ing for his third appear­ance in this series car­ry­ing the title of lead­ing passer in school his­tory. He’s also fourth in the nation with 361.8 yards per game pass­ing and fresh off throw­ing five touch­downs, albeit against Ball State.

Favorite tar­get Ryan Broyles comes in 13 catches shy of the NCAA career record, but the Long­horns can’t blan­ket him because they still have to deal with Kenny Stills. In the fourth quar­ter against Florida State, he kept the win­ning drive alive with a third-and-long catch, then made a ter­rific catch for a touchdown.

Dominique Wha­ley has emerged at run­ning back, chug­ging behind an offen­sive line that’s allowed only two sacks, while line­backer Travis Lewis leads an Okla­homa defense that’s racked up 11 sacks and seven interceptions.

The Long­horns are led by a quar­ter­back tan­dem of sopho­more Case McCoy and fresh­man David Ash, and a fresh­man run­ning back, Mal­colm Brown. Coach Brown famously held Cedric Ben­son out of the lineup when he was a fresh­man, let­ting him play only a sin­gle play against Okla­homa and even that only because some­one had lost a shoe and needed a replacement.

Texas is amaz­ingly bal­anced on offense—214.8 yards per game pass­ing, 206 rushing—and the defense is keep­ing foes to 289 yards per game. Of course, they haven’t faced an offense like this.

Even if the Long­horns don’t match last year’s win total in this game, and maybe not next week­end, when they face Okla­homa State, they seem poised for a quick return. Already being ranked No. 11 indi­cates they already have bounced back, even if they’ve yet to face a stiff test.

“I’m lik­ing this team,” Brown said. “They are giv­ing us every­thing they’ve got and I do think they’ll keep improving.”

Related Posts:

• Col­lege Foot­ball Bowl Sched­ule: Bet­tors Get Ready!
• Both Sides Crit­i­cize Anisi­mov Goal Celebration
• Okla­homa St. Routs Soon­ers, Takes Big 12
• Texas A&M Fires Coach Sherman
• Texas Beats Aggies in Likely Rivalry End

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