With the bye week behind them, Oklahoma is moving straight into its biggest stage of the season.
The unranked Sooners will face No. 1 Texas in the annual Red River Shootout at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Dallas’ Cotton Bowl, coming off a stretch of three quiet offensive outings and trying to reset in a hurry.
For Oklahoma, the matchup carries a few familiar numbers and a few stubborn ones. The Sooners are trying to stop a two-game slide in the series and hand Brent Venables only his second win over the Longhorns as a head coach. They’ve also dropped five straight games against No. 1 teams, with the latest coming in a 34-3 loss to Texas in 2024.
The last time Oklahoma beat a top-ranked opponent came against Missouri in the 2007 Big 12 Championship Game.
Texas was on the other side of this exact kind of setup last year, entering the game unranked after two losses in its first five games while Oklahoma was sixth in the country. The Longhorns then beat the Sooners 23-6 and rolled into a 7-1 run that carried through the rest of the season.
Oklahoma linebacker Kip Lewis said the Sooners have a path to a similar kind of result, and maybe even a similar kind of season shift.
“Communication, grit, physicality behind our pads and just working together,” Lewis said of what the Sooners needed to do to pull off a win over the Longhorns.
History has still not been kind to Oklahoma in this spot. The Sooners have beaten No. 1 opponents seven times, but they have never done it as an unranked team.
Even with the magnitude of the rivalry, Oklahoma spent the bye week trying to keep the focus inward rather than on Texas.
“I try not to jump the gun on excitement and emotions and stuff, but yes, I mean, it gets pretty exciting,” Lewis said last week about the emotions of facing Texas.
Lewis knows the matchup well enough already. He has 14 career tackles across the last four Red River Shootouts.
For plenty of his teammates, though, this will be their first taste of OU-Texas.
That includes tight end Rocky Beers, whose previous rivalry experience came at Air Force, where the Falcons played Army and Navy. Beers transferred to Florida International for the 2023-24 seasons before spending last season at Colorado State.
“I’m pumped, man,” Beers said. “I’ve had this date circled on my calendar. The whole atmosphere around it, I’m just really excited to be in that atmosphere, see if I can compete with the big boys.
“That’s why you come to schools like Oklahoma from CSU. You want to see if you can play with the big boys, and I want a shot, so I’m excited.”
In Other News...
Oklahoma's Run Game Desperately Needs What Tory Blaylock Could Bring
Oklahomas ground game has been grinding through a difficult 2026 season, and the Sooners are still looking for a spark to make it more functional. Through the early going, they have been stuck at 99 rushing yards per game and 2.9 yards per carry, with Lloyd Avant taking on the bulk of the work but finding little room to break through consistently.
Tory Blaylock could be the piece that changes the feel of that offense. The sophomore missed time with an injury and has only had limited carries so far, but his past efficiency and speed have stood out enough to make him a real candidate for a bigger role moving forward. If Oklahoma is going to get its run game moving in the right direction, Blaylock looks like the kind of back who could help it happen. [Read more 🡒]
Brent Venables Just Picked Up More Pressure At Oklahoma
Brent Venables is entering the kind of stretch that can change the mood around a program fast. Oklahoma already has two losing seasons in the last four years under Venables, and even with a contract extension through 2031, the early part of the 2026 season has done little to quiet the unease. A 2-2 start and the offenses uneven play have put the Sooners in an uncomfortable spot, where patience is getting tested against expectations.
The path ahead does not offer much relief. Oklahoma still has a brutal schedule in front of it, with multiple ranked opponents left to navigate, and the margin for error is already thin if the Sooners want to get back to bowl eligibility. They need to win at least half of their remaining games, so the next month will say plenty about whether this season becomes a rebound or another frustration point in Venables tenure. [Read more 🡒]
Jayden Jackson Is Giving Oklahoma Exactly What This Defense Needed
Jayden Jackson has been one of the steadying forces for Oklahomas defense early in the 2026 season, giving the Sooners dependable play in the middle while the rest of the unit works through some uneven moments. The junior defensive tackle has piled up 15 total tackles and backed that up with a strong Pro Football Focus defensive grade, the kind of production that helps explain why the front has stayed effective even as the defense around him has had to keep adjusting.
What makes Jacksons start even more valuable is the timing. Oklahoma has been good on that side of the ball, but the missed tackles have been hard to ignore, with 49 of them over the first four games, and that leaves plenty of room for the Sooners to tighten things up. Senior captain Kip Lewis has pointed to Jacksons consistency and leadership as part of that process, and for a defense still chasing cleaner execution, having a player in the interior who keeps showing up the same way every week matters. [Read more 🡒]