DALLAS — The tone of the talk about Texas is certainly much different a year after the Longhorns rose all the way to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 during their first football season in the mighty Southeastern Conference and — for the first time since 1984 — were the nation’s top-ranked team going into their battle with border rival Oklahoma.
Texas was even the preseason No. 1 this year, and redshirt sophomore quarterback Arch Manning was already considered a Heisman Trophy favorite before taking over as the full-time starter in Austin.
Now, though, the Longhorns (3-2, 0-1) are unranked going into the annual Red River Rivalry game Saturday against No. 6 Oklahoma (5-0, 1-0), trying to save their season and any realistic chance of making the College Football Playoff for the third year in a row.
While the Longhorns stumble into the State Fair of Texas, the Sooners are cruising along with fourth-year head coach Brent Venables calling the plays for a resurgent and dominant defense.
The Sooners joined Texas in bolting the Big 12 for the SEC last year, but now they’re finally threatening to make some noise in their new league. A win over Texas would make the drumbeats even louder.
“For us, coming off last week in SEC play, stubbing our toe at Florida and starting off in conference play 0-1, this is a very significant game,” Texas fifth-year head coach Steve Sarkisian said. “This week in practice, it hasn’t been business as usual. You can feel that sense of urgency. You can feel that level of intensity.”
In some ways, that just sounds like business as usual for Oklahoma-Texas week.
This is the 121st meeting in a series that began in 1900 and has been played annually at Fair Park since 1929. Fans in crimson and burnt orange are split at the 50-yard line inside the historic 92,100-seat Cotton Bowl Stadium.
“In my opinion, the best game in college football in the regular season,” said Sarkisian, who took over at Texas after working as the offensive coordinator for the Alabama Crimson Tide, whose in-state Iron Bowl clash with Auburn is an SEC contest and among the rivalry games that fill the final weekend of college football’s regular season in late November.
Venables was Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator from 1999 to 2011, then spent a decade in the same role on Clemson’s staff before returning to lead the Sooners and return to annual meetings with Texas.
“The history between the two programs, it’s special,” Venables said, “and doesn’t ever get old.”
While the Longhorns own a 64-51-5 series lead, the Sooners have won five of the past seven meetings, a span with some record-setting results.
In Sarkisian’s Red River debut in 2021, the Sooners had a 25-point fourth quarter capped by Kennedy Brooks’ 33-yard touchdown run with three seconds left for a 55-48 win, the highest-scoring game in series history.
In 2022, when Venables was a first-time head coach, it was the first time both teams in the Red River Rivalry were unranked since 1998. Texas won 49-0, which is Oklahoma’s most lopsided shutout loss to any team.
In a battle of unbeatens in 2023, the 12th-ranked Sooners beat No. 3 Texas 34-30 after Dillon Gabriel threw a 3-yard touchdown pass with 15 seconds remaining. And last year, the No. 1 Longhorns beat No. 18 Oklahoma 34-3, the start of a three-game losing streak for the Sooners that contributed to their second 6-7 season in three years and led to questions about Venables’ job security.
Things look a lot different for the Oklahoma coach and his team right now.
Defensively, the Sooners lead the nation in total defense, having allowed an average of 193 yards per game, and opposing offenses have gained no more than a yard on 133 of 276 snaps (55%). The Sooners are tied for first place in the Football Bowl Subdivision this season with their average of 4.2 sacks a game, a real concern for Texas after Manning was under constant pressure and bruised while getting sacked six times in last week’s 29-21 loss at Florida.
“I like this team, I like where we’re at right now,” Venables said. “Both sides of the ball, upwards of 16 players, this is year four for them. I think we’re a benefactor of leadership and the experience and the improvements that we’ve made.”
The big question for Oklahoma’s offense this week has been whether quarterback John Mateer will play for the first time since injuring his throwing hand three weeks ago in a win over Auburn to open SEC play, then having surgery the week of an open date for the Sooners and missing their 44-0 win against overmatched Kent State of the Mid-American Conference last weekend.
On the SEC’s student-athlete availability report posted Thursday night, Mateer was upgraded to probable to play Saturday — he had been considered questionable — and his status remained the same in Friday’s listings.
Venables said earlier this week that he was leaning on doctors to let him know the status of the Washington State transfer, who in his four games for Oklahoma has thrown for 1,215 yards with six touchdowns while running for 190 yards and five scores.
Sooners sophomore Michael Hawkins Jr. started last week’s game agaisnt Kent State and totaled 195 yards (162 passing, 33 rushing) and four touchdowns (three passing, one rushing) before exiting after three quarters with the game in hand. Last year, Hawkins became the first Oklahoma true freshman quarterback to start the Red River Rivalry game, and he was 16-of-24 passing for 120 yards while being sacked five times as the Sooners totaled just 225 yards.