Y’all ready for a rematch?
Oh hell yeah, it’s a Red River rematch in the Big 12 Championship
We’ve rarely had a rivalry on this level in a conference title game.
Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
That’s what we’re officially getting in the Big 12 Championship Game, now that Oklahoma’s survived West Virginia and Texas has survived, uh, Kansas in Week 13. The Sooners and Longhorns will play in Dallas for the second time this season, only this time it’ll be at Jerry World and not the Cotton Bowl, where UT won by a field goal last time.
This is pretty unprecedented as far as conference championship games go.
We’ve gotten rematches of regular season games, but we haven’t really gotten a blood feud rematch in the conference title game era. Oklahoma-Nebraska in the 2010 Big 12 Championship Game was close to this level, but Texas is a bigger rival for the Sooners than Nebraska. 2018’s Georgia-Bama SEC Championship might count, but only because of a game outside conference play. It’s also unusual by Red River standards:
Red River Pt. I was not exactly a definitive showing by the Horns.
Texas won 48-45. Our Bill Connelly’s postgame win expectancy had Oklahoma at 91 percent, with an adjusted scoring margin of +13. Oklahoma outgained Texas by 2.5 yards per play ... and lost. The difference came in the three OU turnovers that yielded 10 Texas points, as the Sooners dug themselves a big hole they had to climb out of only to lose late.
It remains wild that the Horns found a way to win this game, and that was a data point in any TEXAS BACK argument.
Oklahoma made it a 45-31 game with a 15-yard pass from Murray to Lee Morris. After a shanked punt, Murray raced for the 67-yard score. Up just seven with five minutes left, the Longhorns proceeded to throw the ball three consecutive times and go three-and-out. That left OU with plenty of time to tie the game, but they did so too quickly. Trey Sermon scored to make it 45-45 with 2:38 left.
And then Texas relaxed again. Johnson drew a pass interference penalty on a bomb down the left sideline, then Devin Duvernay caught an 18-yarder into OU territory. Ehlinger converted a short-yardage third down, and freshman Cameron Dicker nailed a 40-yard field goal with four seconds left.
The Horns did put on offensive show, though, and finally got OU to fire defensive coordinator Mike Stoops. The Sooner defense has not been noticeably better since.
Kyler Murray put on his own show in the first meeting, going for 304 yards in the air, another 92 on the ground, and five touchdowns in total.
The over/under is going to be huge for the title game. Hope you like points.
Oklahoma should be favored by around 15 on a neutral field like the one at AT&T Stadium, according to pre-Black Friday S&P+ ratings. The line could be smaller than that, as the Horns just beat the Sooners at a neutral site in October.
This matchup is the Big 12’s perfectly imperfect scenario.
Not only is it your biggest brands on your league’s biggest stage, but they hate each other and the game matters. We’re barely removed from one of Texas’ senior captains getting reprimanded by the league for saying OU sucks and has no defense.
Because OU’s in this game with one loss, the Playoff might be on the line, though Lincoln Riley’s team will probably need help elsewhere to get in. Texas will be playing for a certain Sugar Bowl bid and to get to double-digit wins, which would be a major jump in Tom Herman’s second year. Conceivably, UT could still wind up with 11 wins.
It’ll be a Heisman stage for Murray to make one last gasp at the award, too, after most assumed Tua Tagovailoa would run away with it.
The best case for the Big 12 not to have a championship game that’s as likely to keep the league out of the Playoff as put the conference it into it. But if they’re gonna stage the game, this is the matchup and the stakes league brass would probably admit is their dream.
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