The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Bill Little commentary: Streaking into Dallas
10.11.2013 | Football, Bill Little Commentary
The Texas-Oklahoma series goes in streaks. Always has. Always will.
Okay, gang. Let me say this one more time: the Texas-Oklahoma series goes in streaks. Always has. Always will.
So as the pundits stew and the faint of heart wring their hands and predict the sky is falling, worry about something else. Hopefully, world peace and a little bit of rain may actually be more important than trying boldly to predict how Saturday's game between Texas and Oklahoma will turn out. Because only the players will decide.
Just to make the point, here you go:
1940-47: Texas wins 8 straight.
1948-57: Oklahoma wins 9 of 10, including six straight.
1958-70: Texas wins 12 of 13, including eight straight.
1971-75: Oklahoma wins 5 straight.
1976-84: Texas is unbeaten in 7 of 9 (including two ties).
1985-88: Oklahoma wins 4 straight.
1989-99: In 11 years, Oklahoma wins only two games as Texas is 8-2-1, including 4 straight ('89-'92).
2000-04: Oklahoma wins 5 straight.
2005-09: Texas wins 4 of 5 games.
2010-12: Oklahoma has won 3 straight.
And Coach Royal told Coach Brown that streaks end when one team gets tired of hearing about it, and is good enough to do something about it.
Fact is, if you want to look at the most enlightening numbers of the lot -- in the last eight meetings, the series is even at 4-4. And for a game the world considers "a bowl game at mid-season," that balance is the most representative number of all. The two teams met first in 1900, and Texas holds a 59-43-5 series record and a 47-39-4 edge in Dallas.
Given that I have covered at least one of these two teams every year since I was a student at Texas in 1961 -- having spent two years covering the Sooners with The Associated Press in Oklahoma City in 1966 and 1967 -- there are some other givens about this series.
First, the game creates heroes. The legacy of the All-Americans, Heisman winners, and those who flash forward from obscurity into the sun on the floor of that storied old Cotton Bowl Stadium are legion. Second, it is a game which creates indelible memories -- pictures which will hang in the chambers of the mind forever.
Most of all, the Texas-Oklahoma game -- which has become known as the Red River Rivalry -- is like a kaleidoscope of tastes, sights, smells and sounds. It is a game of streaks. And it is a game of momentum. There is an indefinable ebb and flow which traces the pattern of the game. The coaching staffs are both really good and both teams have good players. Coach Royal said long ago that this game always comes down to two things -- turnovers, and the kicking game.
I remember years ago when our great Longhorns pitcher Burt Hooton was talking to a friend about the man's son. He was telling Burt -- who had just been the outstanding pitcher for the L.A. Dodgers in the National League Playoff series -- about his son's talent. That was when Burt stopped him and asked this question: "But," he said, "does he have a passion for the game?"
And as these two teams head to Dallas, it doesn't matter what the critics or the fans -- or perhaps even the coaches think. Because this is a game about passion -- who has the greater passion for the game?
One of the treasured possessions in Mack Brown's office is an old book with a fading blue cover about football. It was written by D. X. Bible, and is signed by both Coach Bible and Coach Royal.
In it, Bible talks about the game, and the fact that it is a hard game. You have to, he said, have passion to play it.
That is what the meeting in Dallas Saturday morning is all about. Bible said the most important thing about football is that it is a team game. More than 50 years before Nate Boyer came up with the theme of this 2013 team of playing for each other, Bible made that point in his book.
This, by the way, was a man who was the third winningest coach in the history of the game when he retired. He had won at Texas A&M and Nebraska before coming to Texas to establish the foundation that is the basis for everything that has ever happened in athletics at The University of Texas.
It was Bible's teams -- by the way -- that won seven of those first eight games of the streak scenario from 1940 through 1947 that we talked about.
Royal, of course, was one of the few men who had actually been on both sides of the game. He played at Oklahoma, and began his coaching career at Texas after being hired by Bible (who was then athletics director) in 1957. Mack Brown is another. He was an assistant to Barry Switzer in 1984 before taking the head coaching job at Tulane, and began his Texas tenure in 1998.
The mystique of the game is legendary. Players remember "the tunnel" -- from whence both teams enter the field. The equally-divided stadium (where Longhorn fans and Sooner fans actually sit side by side at the 50-yard line on both sides of the field), is unique in itself.
Most of all, however, what you have are two teams that come from storied programs which both rank among the winningest in all of college football.
This time, Oklahoma comes in as the favorite. The Sooners are nationally ranked at 5-0. Texas is 3-2, but two of the Longhorns' victories came in Big 12 play.
If the series has reflected anything, it is that we should expect the unexpected. Games that were projected as close have turned into blowouts by both sides, and those that were thought to be an easy win for one side or the other have turned out to be dogfights.
Most of all, this series has a way of leaving its mark on the players, and it is they who not only determine the outcome, but remain the images to remember.
That is why it is impossible to predict, and it is why as the dawn comes in Dallas, the stadium will fill with anticipation.
Outside the stadium, maybe 100,000 people will gather at the State Fair of Texas to ride the rides and see the exhibits and hope for a blue ribbon for little Johnny's lamb or Aunt Sally's pickles. They didn't write that song in the musical that "Our State Fair is a Great State Fair" because Texas and Oklahoma were playing football.
It is -- the game, the fair, the people -- all part of Americana. It is the one place on the planet where two schools from two states gather in such an environment to match pride and bragging rights.
And it is in that space that passion comes into play. Because when you play a game you love because you care so much, anything can happen.
And it usually does.
