{"id":462613,"date":"2026-10-11T02:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T02:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/462613\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T02:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T02:04:09","slug":"greatest-upset-in-history-of-red-river-rivalry-no-chance-with-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/462613\/","title":{"rendered":"Greatest upset in history of Red River Rivalry? No chance with Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Texas<\/p>\n

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian walks down the field following his team\u2019s loss in Red River Rivalry against the Oklahoma Sooners, on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026 at Cotton Bowl in Dallas.<\/p>\n

Shafkat Anowar\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n

On one hand,\u00a0Oklahoma\u2019s last-second, 27-24 upset of No. 1 Texas<\/a> should seemingly go down as the greatest upset in the history of this ancient rivalry, seeing as it\u2019s only the third time the top-ranked team has lost, and never to one unranked.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On the other hand, it seems not a little blasphemy to attach \u201cgreatest\u201d to any aspect of this edition of the Red River Rivalry in front of 92,100<\/a>, at least half no doubt still in stark disbelief.<\/p>\n

Let me just say this: Even if Steve\u00a0Sarkisian hadn\u2019t made a critical mistake with two minutes left; even if John Mateer hadn\u2019t made his two best plays all day to set up Tate Sandell\u2019s 47-yard game-winner<\/a>; even if the Longhorns had somehow hung on and won, they\u2019d no longer be No. 1.<\/p>\n

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Related: 5 thoughts from Oklahoma’s shocking upset of No. 1 Texas: Sooners surge in second half<\/a><\/p>\n

Not after what we saw on a sun-baked afternoon at the Cotton Bowl.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good football team, so we\u2019re not dead,\u201d\u00a0Sark said afterward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sounds like UT all right.<\/p>\n

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Hard to call yourself one of the best teams in the country, let alone No. 1, when you can\u2019t run the ball, you can\u2019t protect the quarterback and you give up 14 points on a blocked punt and a pick-six.<\/p>\n

The Longhorns<\/a> went into the game 7.5-point favorites, and, for a half, anyway, they looked every bit of it. Oklahoma\u2019s offense wasn\u2019t going anywhere. Just like it didn\u2019t last year or the year before.<\/p>\n

The Sooners<\/a> didn\u2019t score their first offensive touchdown against Texas since 2023 until the fourth quarter, and they were right in the thick of it.<\/p>\n

They still had a chance because Arch Manning threw two four-quarter interceptions. The first was a pick-six; the second, the end of Texas\u2019 last chance.<\/p>\n

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Manning finished 19 of 31 for 260 yards,\u00a0outdueling John Mateer, who looked overmatched all afternoon against Texas\u2019 defense. He finished just 18 of 26 for 155 yards.<\/p>\n

But he saved his two biggest completions for the Sooners final possession, hitting Isaiah\u00a0Sategna with dimes on both sides of the field to set up Randall\u2019s winner.<\/p>\n

The difference, at least offensively?<\/p>\n

Manning\u2019s two picks to\u00a0Mateer\u2019s zero.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t be loose with the ball,\u201d Manning said afterward.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think we beat ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frankly, I\u2019m not even sure the Sooners would disagree with that assessment. Besides the physical errors, there was the mental blip by\u00a0Sark after the Longhorns had driven down to the Oklahoma 35 with two minutes left.<\/p>\n

Fourth-and-2, what do you do?<\/p>\n

Thought long and hard about it,\u00a0Sark said. \u00a0Went round and round. Kept asking questions all through the timeout.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we have enough confidence in what had up that I felt like could get the first down?\u201d he asked. \u201cAnd also, did I feel like\u00a0Gianni [Spetic] can make the kick? And then you\u2019re looking at the clock and situation of the game. You start playing with all the factors in it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI felt like the kick was the smart play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why it wasn\u2019t: If you want to think of yourself as an SEC contender, let alone in the running for a national title, you have to believe you can get two yards. Get it, and you burn more clock. Give yourself a kick with better odds. Maybe even a touchdown.<\/p>\n

Instead of that, the Longhorns played into the Sooners\u2019 hands in the final seconds, much as they did throughout the second half.<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s not like Texas hadn\u2019t demonstrated these issues all year. The Longhorns needed that 20-point comeback against Ohio State<\/a> because of the failures in the three quarters preceding it. They had no such comeback in them Saturday.<\/p>\n

The defense remains world-class, though repeated penalties in the second half kept Sooner drives alive.<\/p>\n

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The offensive issues are bigger than just Manning. The offensive line isn\u2019t what you\u2019d expect from a national contender. Neither is the running game.
Should Texas consider a change at play-caller?<\/p>\n

\u201cNot a chance,\u201d said\u00a0Sark, the man in question.<\/p>\n

What do you need to do, then?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to play better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not much doubt about that, because it doesn\u2019t get any easier from here on out. Give the Sooners credit, they\u2019ve got a great defense. The offense is, well, offensive. Imaging what might have happened Saturday if Texas had played an offense that could get out of its own way.<\/p>\n

For the record, only twice has the No. 1-ranked team in this series lost, and both times it was\u00a0OU. The first was in 1963, when Texas was ranked second. The last time was in 2008, when Texas was fifth. The \u201908 game, in particular, was a classic. Come to think of it, let\u2019s scratch the notion that this was the greatest upset.<\/p>\n

These two teams are more alike than we thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian walks down the field following his team\u2019s loss in Red River Rivalry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2353,27,29,28,88146],"class_list":["post-462613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-commentary","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tp-texas-longhorns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}