The Red River Rivalry, commonly known as the Texas-OU Game or OU-Texas Game, is an American college football rivalry game played annually by the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns. The series is considered one of the major rivalries in NCAA football.
The name is derived from the Red River that forms part of the boundary between the U.S. states of Texas and Oklahoma. The game originated in 1900, while Oklahoma was still a United States territory and the Oklahoma campus was still in Oklahoma Territory. Until the 2005 meeting, the 100th meeting between the schools, the game was called the Red River Shootout. In 2005, it was sponsored by SBC Communications, and the game was officially renamed the SBC Red River Rivalry, with the word "Rivalry" replacing "Shootout" out of a desire not to convey an attitude of condoning gun violence. Since 2006, with SBC's merger with AT&T Corporation, the game is referred to as the AT&T Red River Rivalry. The term Red River Shootout or Red River Rivalry is also sometimes applied to meetings between the two schools in sports other than football. During a Q&A session with DeLoss Dodds (the Athletic Director of UT) during the Big 12 restructuring and chaos that ensued thereafter, Mr. Dodds stated in an interview, "That game - the rivalry game for us has always been Oklahoma. The A&M game's been a great game and all of that. And we may play 'em. But it's not something that we have to do. I think the Oklahoma game is something we have to do." This further serves to emphasize what an important game the Red River Rivalry is to both Oklahoma and Texas.
The game typically has conference or even national significance. Since 1945, one or both of the two teams has been ranked among the top 25 teams in the nation coming into 62 out of 67 games. Texas leads the all-time series 59–43–5, with a 47–39–4 edge in Dallas. Since 1945, considered the post-war era, the series is very close with Texas holding a one-win lead, 33-32-3. Six of the last ten showings featured one of the participants in the Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game (2000, 2003–05, and 2008–09), including national titles won by Oklahoma in 2000 and by Texas in 2005. In 2005, the Dallas Morning News asked the 119 Division 1A football coaches to identify the top rivalry game in college football. The Red River Rivalry ranked third, behind only Michigan-Ohio State and Army-Navy.
Read more about Red River Rivalry: Atmosphere, Venue, All-time Red River Rivalry Teams
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“Sisters define their rivalry in terms of competition for the gold cup of parental love. It is never perceived as a cup which runneth over, rather a finite vessel from which the more one sister drinks, the less is left for the others.”
—Elizabeth Fishel (20th century)
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—Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
“The river knows the way to the sea;
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Blessing all lands with its charity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)