DALLAS — The greatest thing about the annual State Fair of Texas is that you can obtain just about anything your imagination can conjure.
Want a stick of bacon slathered in chocolate? A taco filled with deli meat? Perhaps there’s interest in throwing any number of Italian dishes into some dough and tossing it in the deep fryer. If you’re on the lookout, there’s jewelry and cowboy hats in every color imaginable. Teddy bears are available in sizes that range from the palm of your hand to, well, so Texas-sized that you need to strap them on your back.
The most delightful thing you can procure, however, is only available on one weekend a year when the Red River Rivalry transforms the place from quaint to chaotic. The place swells with burnt orange and crimson every second Saturday in October, transforming a meeting point between bitter rivals Texas and Oklahoma into a spot that splits far more than family members with divided loyalties.
Only when the place approaches maximum capacity swirling around the Cotton Bowl and the grounds are teaming with life does the famous golden hat emerge. While it is often an exceptional—and heavy—photo prop for victorious players and coaches, the reason why it is so coveted by both the Sooners and the Longhorns is because of what it represents for those who get to don it before escaping out of the stadium to find a corny dog.
In the case of Texas’s latest triumph, a 23–6 runaway over No. 6 Oklahoma of a previously tight-knit affair, it’s a topper full of Red River relief, redemption and maybe even a message that the preseason No. 1 team in the country isn’t as dead and gone as they were previously made out to be.
“There was a lot of noise outside our building,” said head coach Steve Sarkisian, himself the target of much of that. “There was a lot of s--- getting talked about our team, about these guys. And I think they responded.”
That they did, particularly in a second half that could have so easily gotten away from the team but instead reminded all involved just why there were so many people on the burnt orange bandwagon before they jumped off following last week’s loss to Florida.
Texas was previously 2–10 when trailing at halftime under Sarkisian and was down by a field goal on Saturday to a Sooners team which not only looked superior but had plenty of wind in its sails.
Their quarterback, the subject of nearly every storyline prior to kickoff, John Mateer was indeed playing just 17 days after having surgery to repair a broken bone on his throwing hand. That led many in crimson or cream to show up early on a sweltering day in North Texas, with echoing calls of Boomer Sooner heard far beyond the gates of the fair from the early morning through to the first quarter.
This was a confident bunch, not just because Oklahoma was ranked sixth in the country in the polls but because it had its leader back. A nine-play, 52-yard drive that resulted in a field goal only added to the belief, with Mateer doing his usual escaping of pressure to fling passes all around to a group of receivers who had several openings against a defense which came in top five in FBS in points allowed.
“The pain level was nothing. I mean, there’s no excuse,” said Mateer, who grew up about 45 minutes away. “I was ready to go physically. But mentally, I just didn’t perform.”
Mateer did throw for 202 yards and was the source of the only consistent part of the ground game for Oklahoma with a team-high 14 carries, all but carrying the group and looking far from a signal-caller who was barely two weeks removed from an operation.
Yet it was those handful of mental mistakes, the general lack of sharpness he had displayed in wins over Michigan or Auburn, that did prove to be his team’s undoing. Mateer lofted two interceptions easily into the hands of Texas defenders on lackadaisical overthrows and tossed a third just before the fourth quarter to send some sections on the Oklahoma side of the 50 to the food stands.
What might have been more impressive, what might have even been season saving, was what the Horns did to capitalize.
The second interception that was hauled in by Malik Muhammad just before the end of the second quarter kept it a one-score game and allowed Texas to regroup in the locker room. After emerging from the single tunnel at the Cotton Bowl, the Longhorns were fairly unrecognizable to the group which couldn’t protect their own star quarterback or had previously struggled up front along the lines.
A 14-play, 75-yard drive soaked up most of the third quarter and was followed by a field goal to cap off a 13-play effort. Texas had run 26 plays total in the space of nearly 15 minutes and had outgained the Sooners 140 yards to 20.
That type of productivity, hitting on cylinders that hadn’t really been seen by the burnt orange this season, in turn allowed Arch Manning to look much more like the quarterback he was made out to be coming into the year. He completed 21-of-27 passes for a modest 166 yards but also evaded the rush to take just one sack and added 34 yards on the ground to help Texas go 10 of 17 on third down.
On the game’s lone touchdown, Manning deftly evaded a Sooner off the edge, subtlety moved around the pocket and launched a rope into the hands of DeAndre Moore Jr. in the back of the end zone.
It was like the script finally went to plan for a team which hadn’t seen anything go according to it since that first series at Ohio State in August.
“I think so much is made of Arch. Just like when we don’t win, it’s his fault. But when we do win, everybody praises Arch,” Sarkisian said. “Arch will be the first one to tell you that he’s an awesome teammate, he works hard, he wants everybody else around him to do well. That’s what teams do. You win as a team, and you lose as a team. We’re becoming more and more of a team that way with the right type of grit you have to have in the SEC.
“If we can play the way we play today, we’re plenty good enough to compete with any team in our conference. But we have to play that way.”
That’s key and will be the season-defining feature of this group of Longhorns for the rest of 2025.
If Quintrevion Wisner, who was dapped up by Manning during the postgame press conference upon hearing he had 22 carries, can record 94 yards rushing more consistently than Texas has a shot at turning one win into six more by December.
If the defense can help create a massive turnover margin and limit a good offense to just 3.7 yards per play, then games against Vanderbilt, Georgia and Texas A&M all seem far more winnable than they did last week leaving the Swamp.
If Texas can act like these Red River raiders, then Sarkisian & Co. may just have rediscovered what it was that made them the offseason’s darling.
“I just got done telling the team,” an emotional Oklahoma coach Brent Venables mustered afterward, “that today was a bad day.”
It certainly was for the Sooners, which offered a sharp contrast to their rivals across the field.
Texas had its best day of the season, snagging the Golden Hat for a third time in four seasons and injecting life into the latest one.
It was proof once again that you can find anything at the State Fair of Texas. On Saturday, the Longhorns found what they needed most of all and had been missing this year, in the sweetest of ways they found some hope, some belief and maybe even the start of a run they always had in them.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as How Texas Football Saved its Season With Red River Redemption.
