NCAA Football: What to do with Texas and Oklahoma

We always like to judge conferences based on what the top teams do. In the Pac-12, despite Oregon recruiting at an all-time level, the conference slumps because USC hasn’t been consistently relevant since Pete Carroll left. The SEC is recognized as the best, having three different schools (Auburn, Alabama, and LSU) win the national title and another (Georgia) play in the title game. Clemson carries the weight for the ACC, the same goes for Ohio State in the Big Ten.

The SEC is recognized as the best, having three different schools (Auburn, Alabama, and LSU) win the national title and another (Georgia) play in the title game. Clemson carries the weight for the ACC, the same goes for Ohio State in the Big Ten.

So what do we make of Oklahoma and Texas in the Big 12?

The two are set to square off for the 116th time in the Red River Showdown from a canceled Texas State Fair in Dallas on Saturday. None of the tasty fried treats and the stream of over two million annual guests waltzing around the fairgrounds. The Cotton Bowl will have limited capacity to watch one of the most exciting games annually. There won’t be a wave of burnt orange on one side and crimson on the other.

It’s almost fitting for how the two have played this season.

TCU coach Gary Patterson says that we shouldn’t judge the league solely on Texas and Oklahoma. “It really bothers me that we’ve based everything that whether our league is good or bad or not on whether Oklahoma and Texas are good,” Patterson said Monday. “To be honest with you, we have a lot of good football teams and we always have had a lot of good football teams.”
That might’ve been true when TCU and Baylor were battling for a spot in the College Football Playoff back in 2014, with Oklahoma a year away from breaking in a fresh new quarterback by the name of Baker Mayfield, however, we like to operate in the present.
Let’s start with some straight facts. Oklahoma and Texas should both be 1-2. The Longhorns lucked out recovering an onside kick against Texas Tech on Sept. 26, and that very well might’ve saved any semblance of a deserved NY6 bowl invite later on. A quick breakdown of the two:

Texas

Tom Herman has struggled against TCU and Gary Patterson in his time in Austin, his only win in four tries coming in 2018, so this outcome isn’t all that surprising. Sam Ehlinger has struggled in the matchup too, he didn’t even complete half of his passes on Saturday.
Texas is now just 11-6 against unranked opponents while ranked since 2017, the most losses of that sort in the country, and 1-11 when trailing entering the fourth quarter.
It’s just troubling to see Texas spinning its wheels against teams it consistently out-recruits. The Longhorns have been in the top ten in the country per 247sports each of the last three recruiting cycles, TCU hasn’t ranked higher than 24th. When are we going to see Herman finally take that step to consistently be good like he was at Houston, or will that 2018 continue to be a blip?
As bad as Texas has looked, they aren’t in as bad a spot as their opponent on the other side.

Oklahoma

Lincoln Riley has done an amazing job taking over for Bob Stoops in Norman, making the College Football Playoff each season with three different quarterbacks. The excellence under center has masked most of the other major flaws on the roster. Those flaws are screaming at us as the Sooners sit at 0-2 in the Big 12 standings after two second-half collapses to Iowa State and Kansas State.
It’s already a guarantee that Oklahoma won’t be in the playoff for the fourth consecutive year. No two-loss team has ever made the final field in a normal season, let alone this COVID-year. It’ll take a miracle for Oklahoma to even compete for their own conference title for the sixth consecutive year.
The Sooners were dominated in the second half of both games, and Spencer Rattler struggled. The defense couldn’t come up with stops. We have seen that if Rattler doesn’t play at the top of his game for four full quarters, the Sooners are in big trouble.
Rattler only has three career starts under his belt too, and is the youngest QB that Riley has had in his time as head coach, so there’s going to be growing pains, but we didn’t expect it to be like this.
It is going to have to be on Rattler to keep the Sooners in the conversation for the rest of the year if the defense continues to underperform like it has for years. It might be an unfair ask, but that’s the only way it's worked for the Sooners.
Saturday’s duel in Dallas will say a lot about the story we will write about the Big 12 this season, but for the first time in a while, the outcome might not do enough to help one of these programs push forward to a conference title, let alone a national title.