The Red River Rivalry

So its been almost two months since I last spoke about American football which means this post is well overdue... I'd like to take you back to Saturday October 12th 2013 when the Oklahoma Sooners played the Texas Longhorns in Dallas, TX. This game is known in this small part of the world as The Red River Rivalry after the river which runs through the two states.

This is the famous game I have mentioned time and time again for which the whole University is given the Friday before the game off in order to travel down to Dallas ready for a Saturday morning kickoff. This is undoubtedly OU's biggest game of the season. And for the privilege of attending this game I paid $130, which believe it or not was one of the cheapest student options available! We were perched right at the top of the stadium, one step backwards and I would have fallen over the rail and into the crowd outside. Yes there was a huge crowd outside watching the game on TV, every time someone scored we could hear the crowds from roar inside the stadium echoed five seconds later by the crowd outside.

Now you have to imagine the stadium was packed with fans! Granted there were more OU fans than UT (university of Texas) fans but still we each had to stay on our own Uni's designated side. The atmosphere was crazy: we were all on our feet for 3/4 of the four game in 25 degrees heat shouting our heads off! One side of our area would shout "TEXAS" and in response the other side would shout "SUCK". It was nice to see maturity always prevails... Although with OU being the favourite to win after beating Texas for the previous three years we had too much riding on this game to be mature. Pride meant we had to win!

Some people, especially those at home, have criticized me for paying so much for a college football match but you would have to have been there to really appreciate how well spent that money was. For me even the lead-up to the game was warrant enough for the big spend - our local radio station here in Norman, Oklahoma 'KJ 103' released the best rendition of 'blurred lines' I have ever heard, you have to check it out: Everybody say 'BOOMER SOONER'. If this didn't get everybody riled up for the game I don't know what would have! My favorite lines would be "You'll be saying well there our season went, we'll shut you down like the government" or maybe "you suck you know it". Clearly lyrical genius'.

So into the stadium we all went, expecting a great win (like usual), only to set off to a terrible start. After a great season we lost our touch during the only game that really mattered. The only game I paid a small fortune to watch. The game we had bigged-up all year. We lost. Miserably. To this day I still believe the worst part of the entire atrocity was the lack of dedication in the fans, as soon as a comeback was out of the question half the OU fans left the stadium. I think it would be fair to say us international students were close to the last ones standing. I think the biggest regret was that of the guy to my left who spent the first half of the game throwing his guts up over the edge of the stadium thanks to the hangover of the century... And he dragged himself to the game to watch his team lose. Poor Fraternity boy partying too hard in the big city.

But... Texas still sucks.