TIMELINE: Texas-Oklahoma

Published Oct. 16, 2009 4:19 p.m. ET

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Games played: 103

Series record: Texas leads, 58-40-5

Location: Cotton Bowl in Dallas,

The start of the series as it is now played. Oklahoma was in the Missouri Valley Conference from 1920-27, and the league prohibited its teams from playing neutral-site games. By 1929, Oklahoma was in the Big Six Conference, which allowed the Sooners to make the trip to Dallas after Texas athletic director L. Theo Bellmont extended an invitation. The teams have played every year since. Texas won 21-0.

A controversial call turned into a near-riotous postgame scene. On the last play of the first half, Texas quarterback Bobby Layne handed off to Jim Canady, who fumbled near the goal line. Layne picked up the ball and pitched it to Randall Clay, who scored around the end to give Texas a 13-7 lead.


Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson thought Layne's knee touched the ground as he picked up the ball. At halftime, he charged through the UT band to confront referee Jack Sisco and accidentally knocked over a piccolo player. After the 34-14 Texas win, OU fans threw soda and whiskey bottles onto the field. A police car was brought to midfield to take Sisco and the other referees through the tunnel.

Future Texas coach Darrell Royal, who was a player on the Sooners though he didn't play in the game because of an injury, ended up ducking behind the police car with his future wife, Edith. "He put his helmet on my head, grabbed my hand and we ran off the field behind that police car," Edith told the Dallas Morning News in 1991. Future Cowboys coach Tom Landry was a fullback for the Longhorns at the time. He said, "A lot of us were war veterans, but I guarantee you we were scared."

Oklahoma was 2-0 and ranked third. Texas was 2-0 and ranked fourth. The Longhorns led 13-7 late in the fourth quarter but their punter, Billy Porter, got tackled deep in Texas territory. Billy Vessels scored on the next play and Jim Weatherall kicked the extra point to give Oklahoma a 14-13 victory. It was the only loss of the year for Texas. The Sooners finished 10-1 and won the first of Bud Wilkinson's three national championships.

It seemed as though the Sooners stopped taking Texas seriously after four straight wins over the Longhorns.

Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson walked into the locker room minutes before kickoff at the Cotton Bowl and said, "Gentlemen, I think that you know that you didn't practice well this week. But it is no disgrace to lose to a team such as Texas. Even so, when they beat you, just remember that you are still Oklahoma and keep your head held high."

The fired up Sooners stormed out of the locker room and routed Texas 45-0.

Thirteen-point underdog Texas went into the Oklahoma game having lost six in a row and nine of the last 10 to its hated neighbors to the north. The Longhorns struck first on a 10-yard TD pass from Bobby Lackey to Rene Ramirez and surprised the Sooners by converting a two-point conversion for an 8-0 lead. Bud Wilkinson's Sooners cut the lead to 8-6 with a third-quarter TD, and Oklahoma's Jim Davis picked up a Texas fumble and raced 24 yards for a touchdown to put OU up 14-8 with 12:52 to play.

Texas, without a first down in the second half, then marched 69 yards to the Sooners' seven behind backup QB Vince Matthews. Darrel Royal then put Lackey back in on third down. Lackey hit Bobby Bryant with a jump pass to tie the game with 3:10 to go. Lackey's extra point put Texas up for good as the 'Horns shocked No. 2 Oklahoma 15-14.

No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 2 Texas met in what at the time was called the "Game of the Century." Tommy Ford led the Texas ground attack, spurring the Longhorns to a 14-0 halftime lead. Texas picked up where it left off in the second half and cruised to a 28-7 win.

A large crowd of fans greeted the Longhorns in Austin following the win. Darrell Royal had high praise for his sophomore guard/linebacker Tommy Nobis. "I knew Tommy was a good one, but I had no idea a sophomore could come up and play as well as he has." Texas took over the No. 1 ranking and went on to win its first National Championship.

Texas' vaunted wishbone offense helped the Longhorns beat the Sooners 26-20. With the Longhorns trailing 20-19 at their own 15 and with 2:37 left in the game, quarterback James Street ignited UT's sputtering offense with four big pass completions that put the Longhorns at the OU 21.

With 55 seconds to play, Texas took to the ground. Fullback Steve Worster carried for 14 yards and on the next play rumbled seven yards for the winning score with 39 seconds left in the game. The drive was the turning point for the wishbone formation, as other teams -- including Oklahoma began -- would feature it in the coming decade.

Oklahoma had unveiled its wishbone against Texas a year earlier and lost, 41-9, to the second-ranked Longhorns. The Sooners gained revenge in 1971, winning, 48-27. Greg Pruitt ran for 216 yards and Oklahoma finished with 435, the most by any Texas opponent during the Darrell Royal era. "I've never seen such speed," Royal said afterward. "Their backs look like they are running downhill."

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