Oklahoma Sooners (Football)

Johnny Manziel Was Guzzling Dom Perignon at a Dallas Club on Saturday Night

On Friday night, Texas A&M quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel was picking apart Oklahoma's defense en route to an impressively lopsided 41-13 victory in the Cotton Bowl. On Saturday, he went out to celebrate. TMZ posted pictures of the Heisman Trophy winner partying at Dallas' Ave ... More >>

Where To Party During This Weekend's State Fair Classic

It is upon us: Fair season. Thirty days of fried food, weird crafts, blue-ribbon jams and petting zoos. The people watching, square dancing and pig racing are in full bloom in Fair Park, but as we hit October, Dallas will also prep for two of the biggest college football weekends our little village ... More >>

Deion Sanders Literally Begs Oklahoma to Play Football Against Prime Prep

The football team at Prime Prep Academy, Deion Sanders' charter school, has been struggling to find opponents after a UIL committee barred it from competing against district opponents.That pretty much wiped out their schedule, save for a game against Parish Episcopal at which they endured a 50-6 she ... More >>

Man Who Will Turn Cotton Bowl Facade into Public Art Likes Glass. And Light

Much has been written about the now-certain $25 million renovation and expansion of the Cotton Bowl and the subsequent announcement that the stadium will host the annual cross-border skirmish between  the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma (and their football teams) through at l ... More >>

Texas-OU is Staying at the Cotton Bowl

If you build it dump $82 million into it, they will come. Mayor Mike Rawlings sends word today that it's a lock: The annual, traffic-snarling blood feud between the University of Texas and Oklahoma University known as the Red River Shootout will be played in the Cotton Bowl at least through 2020. ... More >>

Texas and OU, Count Your Money: The Cotton Bowl's $25 Million Facelift is a Lock

The backdrop, the pageantry, the Fried Everything: There are plenty of reasons the folks at Texas and Oklahoma wouldn't mind keeping the schools' annual rivalry at the Cotton Bowl. But these are college football guys we're talking about, so you can't underestimate the Big R. The schools split $10 ... More >>

Park and Rec Is Looking For Firm to Handle $27 Million Worth of Cotton Bowl Improvements

​Shortly before the 2011 kick-off of Texas-OU's annual clash at the Cotton Bowl we spoke with Willis Winters, Park and Rec's second-in-command, about the need to once again renovate the Fair Park stadium in order to keep the Red River Shootout in Dallas past the 2015 contract. Said Winters, it was ... More >>

Why can't Anglos Pronounce Spanish Words?

And why the love for UT?

College Football's Fleecing of American Universities

How insiders use the bowl system to loot the colleges that support it.

Old School Shootout

If Texas and OU Need More Seats to Stay at the Cotton Bowl, Well, There Is Room to Expand

​It's been all of three years, almost to the day, since then-Mayor Tom Leppert and Tennell Atkins played a game of catch on the Cotton Bowl field to formally commemorate the end of $57 million worth of redos, $30 million of which was paid for out of the 2006 bond program with the State Fair of Tex ... More >>

Will This Conference Clustereff Be Good for College Football?

​It's not a matter of if, but merely when. The Big 12 is kaput. When the Board of Regents at OU and Texas yesterday empowered their respective school presidents (David Boren and Williams Powers) to explore new conference affiliations, it officially signaled the beginning of the end for the I ... More >>

Rangers Closer to Raising AL West Pennant, Funds for Shannon Stone

​Yep, the Angels somehow lost to this laughable outfit again last night -- Anaheim has given up the division by going 5-9 against the A's -- shoving the Rangers' lead in the AL West up to 3 with 15 remaining and trimming their magic number to 13. Nelson Cruz should be off the DL and ... More >>

No Matter Where Texas and Oklahoma Wind Up, Texas-OU Will Survive in Dallas ... or Arlington

​After a meeting last weekend of school power brokers -- including UT president William Powers and OU grand poobah David Boren -- it's clear that Texas-OU Weekend will survive regardless of where the Longhorns and Sooners wind up in this chaotic restructuring of conferences. According to a so ... More >>

Your 2011 Fantasy Cowboys*

*This advice is contingent on you promising never to root for your Fantasy Team over your Favorite Team.

A&M to the SEC! Texas as an Independent?! The Big 12 and Texas-OU is Kaput?

​As we speak I'm told University of Texas president Bill Powers and athletic director DeLoss Dodds are planning an informal lunch with state power brokers at Barton Creek Country Club in Austin to discuss the feasibility of the Longhorns becoming a football independent. Hell ... More >>

With USC Out, Oklahoma Should Be 2004 National Champs

Like it never happened?​When Ben Johnson was stripped of his 100-meter gold medal in the 1988 Olympics, it was awarded to second-place finisher Carl Lewis. When Carter High School was ripped of its 1988 Texas State 5A Football Championship, it was given to the team it beat in the titl ... More >>

With Tyron Smith, Jerry Jones Finally Resisted the Glitz

If there's less post-draft buzz than usual, it's because the Cowboys for once went substance over style.

Cowboys' 2011 NFL Draft: My Top 10 Observer-ations

​10. The pick of Southern Cal offensive lineman Tyron Smith isn't sexy, but it's savvy. Thumbs up. And he says he doesn't like jewelry. Two thumbs up. 9. Fifth-rounder and former Cedar Hill star Josh Thomas is physical and a good tackler in the secondary, but you wonder about a four-year ... More >>

Dallas Cowboys' Draft Needs: How About a Safe(ty) Pick

​Enough of this asinine stuff about "best player available." What if, somehow, at No. 9 in April's NFL Draft that player happens to be a tight end? A weakside linebacker? A punter? Or, God and Tim Cowlishaw forbid, a quarterback? Under that premise, the Cowboys - 6-10 and desperate for help ... More >>

Super Bowl XLV Also Gave Us ... The Greatest Moment in Texas Football History?

​I was flattered when the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee approached me late in 2009 to help construct and singularly author its prodigious Century in the Making project. What started with 250 of the greatest moments in Texas football history -- high school, college and pro -- ... More >>

Whitt's End: 1.14.11

​Whether you're at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt's End: *Jerry Jones is desperate to break the Super Bowl attendance record, set at the Rose Bowl back in 1980. To do so, he needs to pack 104,000 into Cowboys Stadium. Or around it? He wants to sell ticke ... More >>

Undefeated TCU, with the best college football program in Texas, doesn't get a chance to win a national championship. Now why is that again?

Texas Attorney General Goes After Okie Payday Lending Firm Pretending to Be Dallas County

​Why, lookie there -- former Dallas Cowboys head coach Barry Switzer's the face of Federal Cash Advance. Makes sense: The payday lender's Oklahoma-based. But, see, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott doesn't take to kindly to the way it runs its bidness down here. Says the AG in a lawsuit filed tod ... More >>

OU 28, Texas 20: My Top 10 Observations

​10. Pretty sure the Sooners and Longhorns are just mediocre football teams. But I'm certain Texas was absolutely gutted -- in emotion and field-position -- by nine penalties. 9. The Longhorns will lose Oct. 16 at Nebraska, giving Texas three consecutive losses for the first time since 1 ... More >>

Report: Week Two of The Shiner Rising Star Contest's Semi-Finals

​Shiner Rising Star UpdateLove & War in Texas in Grapevine September 30, 2010Semi-Final Round, Week TwoAs was the case a few weeks ago, we weren't able to sit in as judge for the latest Shiner Rising Star happening--a shame, really. One of the two best bands from the first round of the entire ... More >>

Texas-OU has, with last week's shocking Longhorns loss, slid from a marquee game with national implications.

The Top 5 Best Games in the History of Texas-OU

​Here's hoping that Saturday's Texas-OU game at the Cotton Bowl is better than last year's yawny 16-13 Longhorns' victory. The memorable 45-35 game in 2008 was a little more like it. Still, with pedestrian quarterbacks Garrett Gilbert and Landry Jones and what I think are two medioc ... More >>

At Duke's Original Roadhouse More Than Food Is Swallowed

​Some choke down too many beers at Duke's Original Roadhouse in Addison. Others inhale sliders. But this Friday, October 1, at 10 p.m. and on Saturday, the entertainment will be swallowing swords and balloons, eating glass and -- get this! -- vomiting razor blades. The folks at Duke's aren't ... More >>

SI Cover Jinx: University of Texas?

​Not sure I get all the hype over Texas this year. I know the Big 12 media picked Oklahoma to win the South, but Texas is ranked No. 4 by Sports Illustrated and - uh-oh - on the cover this week. Last time I checked UT lost a quarterback named Colt McCoy and a receiver called Jordan Shipley an ... More >>

Big 12 Football: OU over UT

​The media hath spoken in regards to the 2010 Big 12 Conference football season and the winners are ... Oklahoma. And Nebraska. We'll get to the full pre-season predictions after the jump, but in picking OU over Texas in the South apparently the Big 12 media thinks Landry Jones will be a bett ... More >>

A Smaller, Weakened Big 12 Conference Means Football Fans Lose Big.

Vince Young the Latest Longhorn to Get Hooked

Vince Young, Not at Onyx​We're not surprised that Vince Young was in a Dallas strip club (Onyx) at 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning. We're not surprised that he was slapped with a citation by police after getting involved in a scuffle. And, considering the kukoos that have played at the University of Texa ... More >>

Whitt's End: 4.9.10

​Whether you're at the end of your rope or merely the end of your rope, welcome to Whitt's End: *Don't care if you're a puckhead or merely a fan of storybook endings, you had to have been moved (to tears?) by Mike Modano's swan song at American Airlines Center Thursday night. In his final hom ... More >>

Are You Ready for Some (College Bowl Game) Football?!

​While Cowboys Stadium is a greedy, event-eating monster and Texas Stadium is an icon about to be reduced to novelty-act rubble, the Cotton Bowl is still a living, breathing attraction. Barely. Later this month in Phoenix the NCAA will likely grant certification to the start-up Dallas Footbal ... More >>

Do You Trust Jerry Jones in the NFL Draft?

​A month from tonight - that's right, tonight - the NFL Draft will commence in prime for the first time. Currently with the 27th overall pick, what will your Dallas Cowboys do? A safety? Perhaps Southern Cal's Taylor Mays or Texas' Earl Thomas? An offensive lineman for when, not if, Flozell A ... More >>

Super Bowl XLV: Century in the Making

​In Texas, the old saying goes, there exist only two sports: Football. And spring football. God, after all, decreed Texas Stadium have a hole in its roof so he could look down upon his favorite team. Right? From the old wooden Fair Park Bowl through the Cotton Bowl, Texas Stadium and now the ... More >>

Super Bowl XLV to Bring Quite the Collection of Gridiron Greats to Woodrow Next Week

​Tony Fay started working for the Dallas Mavericks in 1987 as the media relations intern; by the time he left in '99, he was director of communications -- which was no easy feat back then, given that was six months before Mark Cuban bought the then-struggling franchise just off a lockout season. T ... More >>

Who's More "Inspiring": Sully Sullenberger, Michael J. Fox or Local Air Force Major?

Courtesy BeliefnetMajor Tobin Griffeth and Capt. Katie Illingworth​That's more or less the question being posed over on Beliefnet, where readers are being asked to vote for "The Most Inspiring Person of 2009." Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and the former Alex P. Keaton are among the nominees, ... More >>

TCU's Football Team Demands National Recognition While SMU Takes Relatively Quiet Steps

Texas-OU Belongs in the Cotton Bowl, But Jerry Jones is Preparing to Lure the Game to You Know Where.

Over The Weekend: Erykah Badu, The Cannabinoids and Shiny Toy Guns' Soundclash at Victory Plaza

The Cannabinoids feat. Erykah Badu and Shiny Toy GunsVictory PlazaOctober 16, 2009Better Than: a Texas-OU tennis match. Check out photos from the show here in our slideshow. Continuing the time-honored tradition of competition between Texas and Oklahoma, fans at Victory Plaza were treated once aga ... More >>

Tailgating It at Texas-OU

Photos by Danny FulgencioA few shots before kick-off? Sure, why not.​By 8 a.m. Saturday Oklahoma had pumped its trucks and minivans into Texas to clog Interstate 35 worse than a fat man's aorta. A normally 40-minute drive to Fair Park took well over two hours. It was a fine time to contemplate th ... More >>

Erykah Badu, The Cannabinoids and Shiny Toy Guns Ready Sets For Tonight's Red Bull Soundclash Event. (And: A Giveaway!)

Pete FreedmanErykah Badu andThe Cannabinoids rehearse in front of television cameras. Footage from last night's rehearsal and tonight's performance are expected to be used for a TV show down the line.​A funny scene from last night's Universal Rehearsal Studios-housed run-through for tonight's Red ... More >>

Given Oklahoma’s two losses, Saturday’s showdown with Texas has lost some luster

Texas to Get Revenge on OU for Last Year's Loss. Wait ... What?

​Dear Oklahoma, I am indeed a bitch. Sincerely, Karma Last year the Oklahoma Sooners were whipped by the Texas Longhorns in their annual mid-October showdown in the Cotton Bowl. Both teams lost one game all season, yet somehow - inexplicably - it was Oklahoma, through a discombobulated nation ... More >>

Bleeding Orange and Red

Shropshire chronicles the Red River Shootout

Pot-bellied Cowboy

Finally catching up with the late, great Nate

Last Call

The career of Dallas sportswriter Jim Dent was skyrocketing, then booze and bad behavior caused a hard landing

Fallen Star

A small town turns away from a football hero convicted of drug crimes