Oklahoma and Texas, one of college football's most storied rivalries, opens new chapter in the SEC

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — Perhaps the only way the Oklahoma-Texas rivalry could have become even more intense happened when both joined the powerful Southeastern Conference in July.

The series that began in 1900 immediately will rank with the best of the SEC’s older ones -- Alabama vs. Georgia, the Iron Bowl between Auburn vs. Alabama, the Egg Bowl featuring Ole Miss and Mississippi State and the Florida-Georgia matchups in Jacksonville, long known as the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

First, there’s the atmosphere. The Cotton Bowl in Dallas is a neutral site virtually equal distances from the campuses in Norman, Oklahoma and Austin, Texas. The stadium is split with half Oklahoma crimson and half Texas burnt orange. The game takes place during the State Fair of Texas, creating a vibrant scene and a unique experience.

Then, there's the history. Although Alabama and Georgia have played many high-stakes games in the past decade, even that series doesn't measure up long term. Oklahoma and Texas have 10 AP national titles between them -– Oklahoma boasts seven and Texas has three. In each case, the winner in Dallas won the national championship.

There's plenty at stake this year too — Texas takes the No. 1 ranking into the game for the first time since 1984. Oklahoma. ranked No. 18, would get a huge boost from a win.

“How could you not get excited for this game?” Oklahoma coach Brent Venables said. “This is everything that you want to coach and play for at this level. The pageantry, the emotion, the intensity, the opportunity, all of it. You’re going to have a center stage in college football this Saturday.”

There have been stars aplenty through the years — Oklahoma has seven Heisman winners and Texas has two, with many having helped their causes in Red River Rivalry games.

Legendary Texas coach Darrell Royal played for Oklahoma. But the Sooners have taken much more than a coach from Texas — something Longhorn fans are quick to bring up. Many of Oklahoma’s best players have come from The Longhorn State – Heisman winners Billy Sims, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray are from there, as were star running backs Adrian Peterson, Greg Pruitt, Joe Washington and many others.

Back in the late 1960s, Texas won big with the run-based wishbone offense. Oklahoma's Barry Switzer borrowed it, tweaked it and ran it down Texas’ throat in the 1970s — with a heavy dose of those running backs he recruited from Texas.

The games often have been unpredictable. Last year, for example, Texas was heavily favored, but Oklahoma won on a touchdown pass from Dillon Gabriel to Nic Anderson with 15 seconds remaining. Texas bounced back and made the College Football Playoff.

In perhaps the craziest year of the rivalry, the schools played twice in 2018. Texas won in the regular season, but Oklahoma took the rematch in the Big 12 title game, propelling Murray to the Heisman.

With all that in mind, here are five significant games in the rivalry.

Oklahoma’s Spencer Rattler threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to Drake Stoops — son of former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops — in the fourth overtime for the game winner.

In a game that deserved a full house, the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the crowd to 24,000 at the 93,000-seat Cotton Bowl, and the state fair was canceled for the first time since World War II.

Those who showed up witnessed a barnburner.

Texas’ Sam Ehlinger, who had four rushing touchdowns, threw two scoring passes in the final 3:28 of regulation to help the Longhorns tie the game at 31 and force overtime.

But after Stoops’ touchdown catch, Oklahoma’s Tre’ Brown intercepted Ehlinger to end the game.

Oklahoma was ranked No. 1, Texas was No. 5. Oklahoma twice held 11-point leads in the first half, only for Texas to rally within 21-20 by halftime, with the play of the game coming on Jordan Shipley’s momentum changing 96-yard kickoff return.

The game produced an all-time quarterback duel as Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford passed for 387 yards and five touchdowns and Texas’ Colt McCoy passed for 287 yards and a score. Texas vaulted to No. 1 after the victory and held the spot for three weeks.

Oklahoma ended up winning in the end. Bradford won the Heisman and McCoy finished second. And the Sooners were granted the BCS national championship tiebreaker to earn a berth in the national title game.

This game is remembered mostly for a spectacular play by Oklahoma defensive stars Roy Williams and Teddy Lehman.

Oklahoma led 7-3 late in the fourth quarter, but Texas had a sliver of hope. After a punt, the Longhorns took possession on their 3-yard line with just over two minutes remaining. On Texas’ first play, Chris Simms dropped back into the end zone. Williams leaped into the air and hit Simms while he was throwing. Lehman caught the fluttering pass and returned it 2 yards for a touchdown. Williams would collect an interception later to help the Sooners close it out.

Oklahoma, the defending national champion, won its 18th straight game overall.

The first matchup between Texas coach Mack Brown and Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops was a doozy that started with trickery.

Oklahoma offensive coordinator Mike Leach wrote up a fake play script for the start of the game and hatched an elaborate plan to have it left near the Texas bench in pregame warmups. It worked when the Longhorns found the script and, thinking they knew the Sooners’ game plan, were lining up in all the wrong places.

Josh Heupel, who would lead the Sooners to the national championship in 2000, had 181 yards passing and two touchdowns as Oklahoma raced to a 17-0 lead. Texas defensive coordinator Carl Reese eventually trashed the bogus script and the Longhorns staged their biggest rally in nearly 35 years to win.

Before the game, Sooners freshman linebacker Brian Bosworth — a native Oklahoman — declared: “I hate Texas, I hate (Texas coach) Freddie Akers and I hate that burnt orange color. It reminds me of people’s vomit.”

On a rainy, soggy day at the Cotton Bowl, No. 3 Oklahoma led the top-ranked Longhorns 15-10 late in the third quarter before a safety pulled Texas within three. Texas was driving for the winning touchdown when an apparent Oklahoma interception was ruled out of bounds. With 4 seconds left, Texas’ Jeff Ward kicked a game-tying field goal. Switzer chased the game officials to yell at them.

″Oklahoma fans were mad," Ward told the AP in 2000. "Texas fans were mad. Everybody was shouting. You felt miserable because of the rain.”

Bosworth respected Texas even less for the tie as the years went by.

“‘They came and did the unthinkable, trying to tie it up,″ Bosworth said in 2000. ″They were the No. 1 team. That was like shooting themselves in the head.’

AP Sports Writer Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas contributed to this report.

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FILE - In this Oct. 11, 2008, file photo, Texas coach Mack Brown celebrates with Texas defensive tackle Roy Miller (99) and others after beating No. 1 Oklahoma 45-35 in an NCAA college football game in Dallas.AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)

FILE - Texas wide receiver Xavier Worthy (1) and running back CJ Baxter (4) wait in the tunnel before an NCAA college football game against Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter, File)

FILE - Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, left, drops back to pass against Oklahoma during the first half of an NCAA college football game at the Cotton Bowl, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter, File)

FILE - The logos of Texas and Oklahoma are painted at midfield before an NCAA college football game at the Cotton Bowl, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 11, 2008, file photo, Texas coach Mack Brown, center under trophy, and the Longhorns celebrate their 45-35 win over Oklahoma win with the "Golden Hat Trophy" after an NCAA college football game in Dallas. (AP Photo/ University of Texas, Jim Sigmon, Pool, File)

FILE - An Oklahoma cheerleader flies in the air before an NCAA college football game between Texas and Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2014, in Dallas. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 13, 1984, file photo, Texas quarterback Todd Dodge (13) gets the ball away as he is tackled by Oklahoma's Darell Reed (40) during the third period of an NCAA college football game in Dallas. The pass fell incomplete. The game ended in a 15-15 tie. (AP Photo/Ron Ennis, File)

FILE - -Texas quarterback Chris Simms (1) is hit by Oklahoma's Roy Williams (38) in the fourth quarter, causing Simms to throw an interception to Oklahoma's Teddy Lehman, Saturday, Oct. 6, 2001, in Dallas. Lehman returned the interception 2 yards for a touchdown and Oklahoma won 14-3. (AP Photo/Tim Sharp, File)

FILE - Oklahoma's Billy Sims (20) goes airborne in an effort to score from the two -yard line in the first quarter of an NCAA college football game against Texas, Saturday Oct.7, 1978, in Dallas. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - The Cotton Bowl is shown on the 100th match-up of Texas and Oklahoma in an NCAA college football game in Dallas, Saturday, Oct. 10 , 2005. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

Back-to-back hurricanes have jumbled the presidential campaign schedules of Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

Trump and Harris have separately gone to Georgia to assess hurricane damage and pledge support. Harris also has visited North Carolina, requiring the candidates to cancel campaign events elsewhere and use up time that is a precious resource in the final weeks before any election. Both Georgia and North Carolina are political battlegrounds.

Meanwhile, a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that a solid majority of Hispanic women have a positive opinion of Harris and a negative view of Trump. Hispanic men are more divided on both candidates.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’ husband, says Donald Trump won’t debate his wife again because he was badly beaten in their first encounter.

“He’s afraid that that’s going to happen again,” Emhoff says in an interview for the MSNBC show “Morning Joe.”

The husband of the Democratic nominee says Trump would rather spread “this fog of misinformation and disinformation and gaslighting” than face Harris directly.

Emhoff says he doesn’t have the time to be angry at Trump’s criticisms of him and his wife, because that would be a “distraction” and the focus of the Democratic ticket is on campaigning to win the Nov. 5 election.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is firing back at Donald Trump in Michigan for insulting Detroit while campaigning in the city.

Trump said Thursday that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the White House, “The whole country will be like — you want to know the truth? It’ll be like Detroit.”

Walz was to use a campaign event in nearby Warren, Michigan, to attack Trump’s record in the battleground state, according to prepared remarks shared by the campaign.

“Maybe if he ever spent any time in the Midwest, he’d know Detroit is experiencing a great American comeback. Crime is down. The city is growing. Factories are opening again,” he was to say. "But all these guys know about manufacturing is how to manufacture bulls—-.”

Walz plans to quote Trump campaigning in the state in 2016 promising that they “won’t lose one” automotive plant if he’s elected. ”I guess, technically, that wasn’t a lie — because he lost 6 of them across the country,” Walz was to say.

Walz also plans to reassure the auto-heavy state that Harris was not trying to ban gas-powered vehicles.

Vice President Kamala Harris will participate in a town hall hosted by Charlamagne tha God on Tuesday, the influential radio host announced on his show Friday.

The appearance comes as Harris’ campaign is looking to shore up support among Black men for her candidacy.

The announcement comes a day after former President Barack Obama delivered a forceful call for Black men to support Harris during a campaign swing in Pennsylvania.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says, “I don’t know if any of us do everything right,” as he tried to draw some distance between the Democratic ticket and President Joe Biden.

Speaking to ABC’s "Good Morning America,” Walz was asked whether he and Vice President Kamala Harris would have done anything different over the last four years.

“Look, I don’t know if any of us do everything right,” he replied. “But I can tell you he’s done everything in the best interests of the American public.”

Harris drew fire from former President Donald Trump when she told “The View” earlier this week that she couldn’t think of a difference with Biden — before saying she would put a Republican in her Cabinet if elected.

Walz also used the interview to try to walk back his call at a fundraiser this week to eliminate the electoral college. Harris’ campaign quickly stated it doesn't support such a move and Walz told ABC, “My position is the campaign’s position.”

Republican vice president nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks during a campaign event in Greensboro, N.C., Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks to the crowd during an early voting rally at Palo Verde High School in Tucson, Ariz., Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Kelly Presnell/Arizona Daily Star via AP)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris poses for a photo with a supporter after speaking at a campaign event Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, on the Gila River Indian Community reservation in Chandler, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a meeting of the Detroit Economic Club, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)