The annual showdown between Oklahoma and Texas doesn't need much in the way of extra juice. "I think it's just in the dirt," Oklahoma linebacker Kobie McKinzie said of why point spreads don't matter in the Red River Rivalry. "Whatever happened there over these hundreds of years is just there.
Like, you just hit the field, it feels like it's hard to breathe. There's nowhere to go." There will be plenty on the line Saturday when the top-ranked Longhorns take on the No.
18 Sooners in Dallas in one of the most unique rivalry games in the sport. The game is played in the middle of the State Fair of Texas with the crowd split 50-50 down the 50-yard line. It hasn't quite been played for "hundreds" of years, like McKinzie said, but it has been held for nearly a century at its current home.
The Longhorns (5-0, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) come into the game as heavy favorites, though even wide point spreads haven't kept the contest from being competitive. In the past 10 regular-season meetings, only one -- Texas' 49-0 win in 2022 -- was decided by more than eight points. "It's a rivalry game," Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian said.
"We're favored or we're not, it doesn't matter. Records and things don't matter in games like this." The Longhorns expect to have starting quarterback Quinn Ewers back for the first time since he sustained an abdominal injury against UTSA on Sept.
14. Arch Manning started the past two games for Texas. "We're going to monitor (Ewers) daily just to kind of see.