The Very First Red River Shootout

The term "rival" in sports can mean any number of things. You could be a simple conference rival, meaning that you play each other every year. This type of rivalry is developed because in playing each other every year you are bound to develop animosity. You could develop a rivalry simply because success demands it. If you are two teams that constantly vie for championships the rivalry will develop through high stakes battles. Then there are the rivalries that develop purely based on the region. The closer you are, the better the chance of a vicious rivalry.

Then, there are the blessed situations where all three of these components come together at once. When you play for conference and regional supremacy with rankings high and championship aspirations at hand. This is Oklahoma-Texas. This is what the Red River Rivalry is all about. Hatred brewed from regional supremacy and championship aspirations, hatred brewed from success. It all began on the first game of Oklahoma's 1900 season.

Dan Jenkins once remarked in Sports Illustrated about Oklahoma- Texas, "It's college football's equivalent of a prison riot-with coeds, ...Give a Texas oilman two drinks and he'll bet you every offshore well he's got (and some that he hasn't got) that the Longhorns will whip Oklahoma. It takes about the same for an Oklahoma oilman to wager every dust bowl well he's got that the Sooners will whip Texas." Richard Whittingham described the rivalry's passion in Rites of Autumn:

The kinetic energy that fills the stadium is all the more remarkable considering the percentage of spectators who must be suffering from the year's biggest hangover. Mass arrests in downtown Dallas the night before the gridiron war are routine, sometimes totaling as many as 700 overzealous fans. On a more reserved note, the occasion also brings together a cavalcade of affluent alumni who could probably wipe out the national debt of Brazil if they had a desire to do so. One writer once observed that, "there are more lizard-skin cowboy boots at this game than there are lizards in all of Texas."

The first game of this series was to be in Austin to start the 1900 season for Oklahoma. Texas was a monster that season, only giving up points to Oklahoma and Missouri while routing every team that graced their schedule. Oklahoma was trying to overcome the losses of the Merkle brothers and the tremendously talented Fred Roberts, who was lured away to Washburn College to play for a coaching prodigy of Fielding H. Yost, Bennie Owen.

The Rough Riders were railroaded by Texas in the first half, but played them almost even in the second. After losing a potential touchdown at the doorstep with a fumble, Oklahoma finally succumbed to a 28-2 rout. Texas was a powerhouse and some still viewed the game as a great step for Oklahoma football. They had gained notoriety enough to travel to Austin, Texas even though the Texas media had stereotypical views of Oklahomans; Harold Keith explained this in Oklahoma Kickoff:

Although they got very little sleep across the hard seats, Parrington's squad cheerfully traveled the four hundred miles to Austin, Texas by chair car. After riding all night, they arrived morning of the Texas game at the Longhorn citadel and taking a brief look at the field, retired to the Driskill Hotel where Lum Roberts put them to bed. The long trip had passed pleasantly enough despite the fatigue. Clyde Bogle had brought along a can of cool fresh milk from his dairy. Harv Short fetched a sack of apples from the Short farm. Everybody had a good time and enjoyed to the utmost the novel experience of the long train ride.

"Oklahoma got in last night with a bunch of fast Indians in her backfield," an Austin newspaper glibly told its readers that morning, thereby originating a fabrication that still follows Oklahoma football squads to this day. If all the foreign sports writers who have credited Oklahoma athletic teams with spurious Indians were laid end to end on the prairie, it would be a fine thing.

And so the stereotyping of Oklahoma teams in the media began. Nobody wanted to believe that Oklahoma could be a deviation from the wild, Indian frontier land that they dreamed of in their slumber. People would learn soon enough that this was a burgeoning area of education and community. In time, people would learn exactly what Oklahoma had to offer, athletically and economically.

By some cruel stroke of irony Oklahoma played the Chilocco Indian School the next week. The Indians played admirably against Oklahoma in the second half, as the Umpire put it, "In the last half the Indians drew their sweaters and fought like fiends." Unfortunately for the Indians, they still got rocked 27-0 on the day and Oklahoma was back on track.

Sources

1. Oklahoma Kickoff by Harold Keith
2. The Daily Oklahoman Archives
3. Rites of Autumn: The Story of College Football by Richard Whittingham