Oklahoma Sooners – Now THIS is a proper rivalry! “The Red River Rivalry” as it’s called now, is one of the truly great rivalries in all of sports let alone college sports. The University of Texas at Austin and Oklahoma University  first played this game in1900 and it has been contested in Dallas, annually, since 1929. 

As well as for bragging rights, the two schools play for the coveted “Golden Hat” trophy which is awarded to the winner on the field after each contest. 120 times these titans of college football have met with Texas owning an advantage in the series, 64-51 with 5 ties.

This is the only rivalry game that I can speak about with personal memories. I was actually blessed with tickets from a friend of mine. My wife and I went with he and his wife and my life was changed forever. It was 1987 and we had just moved to Irving, TX the year before. The State Fair of Texas and “The Red River Shootout” as it was called back then was almost too much for this country boy from Mississippi to take.

I remember it was a gorgeous October day and my wife was asking lots of questions about the game. She wasn’t totally clueless about football, but her knowledge was built around her little brothers playing in high school. We met while at a university that didn’t have a football program, so that didn’t help. The crux of my knowledge as a child was from my dad’s love of the New Orleans Saints. So as I answered her questions, a man in the row in front of us kept turning around and telling her that I was wrong about pretty much everything. I think my wife believed him to be right, but she thought that I was being chivalrous by trying to help her. Of course, I came away feeling like an idiot. The stuff you remember sometimes, huh? I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I remember that from 38 years ago! Lol!