No. 12 Oklahoma edged Texas in the Red River Rivalry game at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday, 29-24. The Sooners celebrated by sticking a flag at midfield.
Oklahoma had its third postgame flag episode of the year after beating Texas
Imperialism!
That’s a feature of this game. Here’s OU doing it last year:
Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
They play this game at a neutral site, in Dallas, and it’s like claiming land.
Oklahoma’s had quite a year of flag stuff.
After a huge win at Ohio State in Week 2, Baker Mayfield planted an OU flag at midfield in Columbus.
He later apologized, which was unnecessary. But he pointed out that the Red River flag-planting tradition was part of his thinking at the time:
“I mean, we do the flag thing at OU-Texas, and so, that’s just something I got caught up in in an emotional win, and you know, yeah, it should have been something I did in the locker room,” Mayfield said then.
After Oklahoma, ranked No. 3, lost a few weeks later at home to Iowa State, the Cyclones briefly put their flag at midfield in Norman:
Now Oklahoma’s on the positive side of flag wars again.
This was an emotional game, and winning was worth celebrating.
The Sooners had a 20-0 lead with four minutes left in the second quarter. The Longhorns clawed back from there and took a 24-23 lead on a Sam Ehlinger 8-yard run with eight minutes left. The Sooners went back up (for good) on a 59-yarder from Mayfield to Mark Andrews just a minute later.
Oklahoma lost to Iowa State last week when the Sooners were ranked No. 3. Despite that, they were 9-point favorites in this game. But Oklahoma-Texas is probably the most unpredictable rivalry in college football. It’s not just a cliche to say you can throw out the records when the Sooners play the Longhorns. That this game came down to basically the wire surprised just about nobody on either side of the series.
Both teams’ starting quarterbacks briefly exited with injuries: OU’s Mayfield after a third-down throwaway late in the third quarter, and UT’s Ehlinger after a weird landing on the sideline in the fourth. Mayfield didn’t miss an offensive snap, and Ehlinger was only briefly absent while Texas gave the ball to sophomore Shane Buechele. Ehlinger, a true freshman, returned for the end of the game.
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