College football has many big rivalries. Notre Dame and Navy, Penn State and Michigan State, and UCLA and Stanford just to name a few. This weekend is one that ranks right up at the top when Texas and OU meet again at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The rivalry goes all the way back to 1900. The Longhorns beat the Sooners 28-2 that first meeting and the game was in Austin. In 1901 and again in 1903 the two teams played each other twice. Texas won the first four games, the first game played in 1903 was a tie, then two more wins for Texas. OU got its first win was in 1905 in Oklahoma City. The first Dallas game was in 1912 and became the permanent annual site of the Red River Shootout in 1929.The neutral site has been one factor that has made this rivalry so big. The meeting halfway allows both teams to have a large fan representation and with a capacity of 68,252 it can really get to rocking.
These two teams have had many games in past that had National Championship implications. This year Texas is ranked number 7 and OU 13th. The BCS will release the first official standings October 15th. It doesn’t look like a Championship will be on the line but it could be huge for each teams future. With both teams loosing key players next year bragging rights will be a strong recruiting tool.
One thing you can count on for sure is it will be a big game with lots of emotion. It never seams to really matter how the season has gone for either team leading up to the big game. When they cross paths in Dallas they find away to raise their level of play.
