Inside the Longhorn Nation

After Bubba’s great post on the Red River Shootout, I asked my good friend Tony from Austin to provide us with some insight to this game. Tony is a Texas alum and a resident of Austin, so he should have some great thoughts on this. Plus, he shares a love for the great words of Will Muschamp, just like the rest of us (be warned: foul language will ensue at the end of the post).


The Red River Shootout/Rivalry/Walkabout (whatever) is the greatest sporting event since Maximus took on 3 gladiators, 4 tigers, and Johnny Cash. The atmosphere for the game is tremendous. Where else can you have the best rivalry in college football and the country’s largest state fair in the background? As for the food, while the fried bacon and fried coke are great, it begins and ends with the Fletcher’s Corny Dog. It’s the only thing Okies and Longhorns can agree on all weekend. One of the great traditions friends and I have is to be the first ones out of the game at halftime. We down two large beers, two Fletcher’s Corny Dogs, smoke two cigarettes and get back to our seats before the second half begins.

Before any OU fans try and tell you that the game is in Texas and they’re the “visitors,” remind them the Cotton Bowl is 3 miles CLOSER to Norman than to Austin. Longhorns and those inbred, toothless bastards to the north seemingly get along while walking around the fair before the game.

One of the funniest things about the demographics about TX/OU weekend is the women. If you see a pretty girl anywhere on the fairgrounds she will, without a doubt, be wearing burnt orange. I don’t know what they put in the water at our little neighbor to the north, but I have never seen a more abundance of ugly women in equally ugly colors.

However, as soon as you walk through the antique (apparently now face-lifted Cotton Bowl) you don’t care about the girls, the corn dogs or the beer (ok, maybe the beer a little bit). The intensity is unreal. It’s so thick and so full of hate for the opposition; this is why we have to play the game at 11 am (neither school would allow for a night game because of fear of packing the Dallas Co. jail). Our band starts playing, theirs plays louder. They start the ghey “OU” chant; we have to say “Texas Fight” louder. They take a piss in the urinal; we take a piss on their shoes…and on and on.

Texas is well known, at least in conference, to have a very apathetic fan base. If you get to the Cotton Bowl an hour before the game, 90% of the OU section is filled compared with maybe 1/3 of the UT section. We are the LA Lakers of college football. However, for this game and only this game, when we eventually get there we are loud and involved. For only this game, girls don’t care about their purse matching their boots and guys don’t care about their white little polo horsies on their burnt orange shirt…they only care about the game. Then again, it is Dallas, so the girls do check their makeup between quarters.

Slowly but surely, those Longhorns are making it in.

The last 8 years of this rivalry have not been kind to the Longhorns. OU has won 6 of the last 8 including a 5 run stretch. However, one of the things nobody realized at the time was how overrated UT was in every one of those games, except the National Championship year. This year is different than the overrated years. We are for real. We will not only win the game, but we will win the game going away. Mack will be a winner of 3 of the last 4. It starts with Colt McCoy and ends with Will Muschamp.

On offense, Colt “I’ve never had a coke in my life” McCoy is completing nearly 80% of his passes and rushing for 370 yards (Who’s this Tebow guy)? We have scored no less than 38 points in each gam, called off the dogs in the fourth quarter of every game and put in our turnover prone backup. Our RB is still by committee, but Chris Obgann, Ogbanni, er #3, will start. Bruiser Cody Johnson, Vondrell Magee, and maybe (please Lord, please), Fozzie Whittaker will be taking some snaps. We will be fine offensively. The only worry is Greg Davis’ conservative play-calling. However, Mack admitted our play-calling was conservative under his direction and he’s turned Davis loose this year.

On defense, two words: Boom Motherfucker!!! We lead the nation in sacks, negative yards, one of the top 5 rushing defenses, but to quote Muschamp: “stats are for losers, I want to win games.” I don’t want him to think I’m a loser, so I will not mention any of that. Sorry coach, please don’t hurt me…

Good guys – 48, Land Thieves – 24 (after the game, Muschamp will yell about giving up 14 points in trash time while holding a bloody visor with hair that he ripped off Stoops head).

- Tony from Austin

The Deep-Fried Red River Heart Attack

This weekend brings us the great fall tradition of the State Fair of Texas and the Red River Shootout (not to be confused with the Red River Rivalry that title sponsor AT&T wants you to call it). This annual meeting between the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma is just as unique as “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” and I’d put the shootout on the same level if this game wasn’t played at 11AM central time every year.

The game promises to be intense and we will get into the on-field merits of the Longhorns and Sooners as well as the rivalry and the fans later. First, let’s focus on the State Fair of Texas’ seemingly never ending selection of deep-fried food. Every year “Big Tex” offers up some oddly developed and oddly delicious concoctions that could only conceived in a cauldron of hot Texas Crisco.

1) Fried Coca-Cola: Being a UGA Graduate raised in the thriving Southwest Georgia metropolis of Americus, how could this not appeal to me? I mean, we are basically talking about deep fried dough made with one of God’s great gifts to society, Coca-Cola. Add some “Coca-Cola syrup” and whipped cream and you’ve taken the funnel cake to another level.

2) Chicken Fried Bacon: Battered, deep-fried, peppered Bacon that is served with Honey Mustard or Ranch dipping sauce, say what? I will have 6 please. Seriously, I know some people hate it, but thank you Texas for Chicken Fried stuff. Think you could get this stuff on a cheeseburger? Better idea yet, a Chicken Fried Bacon Cheeseburger, yum. Honorable mention here would have to go to the Chocolate Covered Bacon served at the Arkansas State Fair. See, Texas didn’t think of everything.

3) Fernie’s All-American Fried Grilled Cheese Sandwich: The Grilled Cheese Sandwich is one of life’s true little pleasures. Get a little cheese, some good bread and griddle it with butter in a pan. The cheese melts and the bread toasts, easy comfort food right there. Now, how can we improve on that? Here is an idea, lets take the cheese and bread combination, dunk it in an egg and milk batter and cover it with light breadcrumbs. After a quick bath in Crisco you get a souped-up cheese Monte Cristo, sign me up now.

"Big Tex" is a fan of Rolaids. You should be too.

Now, there is nothing like 4 days on St. Simons and/or in Jacksonville for Georgia and Florida’s annual celebration of the repeal of prohibition. However, I believe that a few restaurants at the Jacksonville Landing serving Chicken Fried Bacon would really put that party over the top.

Seriously, this game has had major implications on the national college football scene for decades and the 103rd edition to be played Saturday is no different. Oklahoma and Texas are both very strong squads that have rolled in the majority of their games with strong QB play. The Sooners have a strong supporting cast behind Sam Bradford and look for him to make good decisions and big plays with the football. On the other side, Colt McCoy has really been outstanding in leading the Horns in both rushing and passing. Neither defense has been stretched or tested this season with the type of athletes that they will see Saturday, leading me to believe that points will be put on the scoreboard. Personally, I see Oklahoma pulling out a 31-27 victory in a hard fought, entertaining football game but this game can be very unpredictable. Just look at the 63 and 65 spot that OU dropped on the Burnt Orange in 2000 and 2003. On a side note, why does Oklahoma call themselves OU when they are the University of Oklahoma, shouldn’t they be UOK? The same thing goes for Kansas, oh well.

Last but never least, we need to mention the fans in Dallas, the atmosphere of the Cotton Bowl, and the history of the game. Texas and Okalahoma have never really been fond of each other and this is literally a ball busting rivalry. Dallas was selected as the host site for this game in 1912 because of its proximity and central location to both college campuses and the Cotton Bowl has been used as a neutral stadium since 1929. Like Jacksonville and the Gator Bowl, tickets are split 50/50 but in a far more interesting manor going down the 50 yard line.


Texas owns a 57-40-5 record overall in the series and has a 46-35-4 edge since the move to Dallas. Names featured in this game are college football royalty, including former OU QB and Texas Head Coach Darrell Royal and OU Coaches Bud Wilkinson and Barry Switzer. Overall, this is one of the greatest games and football atmospheres of the year. It is better than Michigan/Ohio State in my opinion and it blows that Notre Dame/USC crap out of the water. Real football is played in the south with fried food and without a guy riding around wrapped in tin foil on a big damn horse.