At least we can count on OU-Texas in the Cotton Bowl
Published: 5/14/2012 7:54 AM
Last Modified: 5/14/2012 7:54 AM
Some hotshot Florida State trustee popped off over the weekend, and now a lot of folks are convinced the first domino has fallen. It's only a matter of time, they say, before the Seminoles and heaven knows who else join the Big 12 Conference.
It's only a matter of time before the realignment ride begins again. And when it stops, passengers will puke all over history. Again.
Oklahoma no longer plays Big Ten member Nebraska in football. Kansas no longer plays SEC-bound Missouri in basketball. Texas no longer plays Texas A&M in anything.
"Tradition" is no longer a buzzword in college sports. "Brand" is. And "footprint." And "market."
This course toward history's undoing makes what happened Friday in Dallas pretty cool.
The Morning News reported that both OU and Texas sent signed contracts to the City of Dallas, extending the Cotton Bowl's lease on the Red River Rivalry through 2020. Good to know the Sooners are Longhorns are going to ride out realignment together, and right where they've played football since 1929.
Thinking otherwise shouldn't even be a possibility. For years Bob Stoops and Joe Castiglione have waxed poetic about the tradition of this game in that setting. Players have spoken reverentially of the bus ride through the fairgrounds, the walk down the Cotton Bowl ramp and that mesmerizing look at a stadium cut right down the middle at the 50, crimson on one side and burnt orange on the other.
But then college football's tide changed, and last year Stoops was asked if OU and Texas needed to be in the same conference going forward. Which was like being asked if OU and Texas needed to play football every year, let alone on the fairgrounds.
"It's fair to say that we both complement each other really well, and that maybe one and one doesn't equal two with the two of us together. It may equal more like four," he answered in cyptic tones that seemed just right with the realignment frenzy at the time. "But only if it's done properly and harmoniously. And if it isn't then it's not necessary. Then you have to do what you've got to do and live the way you've got to live. Then some things are pretty cut and dry, and people have to got to live with what the consequence of that are, and you move on and find other things, other rivalries and other people to get excited about."
Somehow, OU, Texas and the Big 12 came through all of that madness together, with richer TV deals, a new commissioner and the prospect of bigger and better on the horizon. Of course, that meant adding TCU and (gulp) West Virginia. Maybe it eventually means adding Florida State.
There isn't much we know for sure anymore when it comes to bigtime college football. Stoops is going to wear a visor. Mack Brown is going to clap a lot. The two of them are going to see each other down in the Cotton Bowl one October Saturday the next nine years. Or if they're not, their schools are.
That counts for something. It counts for a whole lot, actually, given what has happened, and what might yet happen, all around them.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
