When Texas steps into the Cotton Bowl on Saturday for the 122nd Red River Rivalry, it won’t be walking into anything close to a quiet, neutral backdrop. It will be stepping into a split-house environment built for noise, color and pressure, with both fan bases expected to pack their sides of the stadium and make themselves heard from the first snap.
That setup is exactly what makes this matchup stand apart, according to Texas coach Steve Sarkisian.
“It’s the most special setting in college football,” Sarkisian said in a media availability on Monday. “This thing’s split at the 50, and half the game is a home game, and the other half of the game is a road game.”
Unlike most neutral-site games, where fans cluster behind their own bench, this one divides the stadium right down the middle. Oklahoma fans will sit behind Texas’ sideline, and Texas fans will do the same on the Sooners’ side. That arrangement turns every drive into something a little louder, a little sharper and a lot less comfortable.
The noise is part of the challenge, too. There won’t be the usual home-field dip in volume when one team is on offense, and Texas fifth-year defensive lineman Hero Kanu said that kind of nonstop energy changes the feel of the game.
“That adrenaline is staying on,” Kanu said. ”It’s just an exciting feeling.
And you just look up, see one side is burnt orange, the other one is what, crimson, or whatever. What is it?”
Kanu, who played in his first Red River Rivalry last year, knows the atmosphere can hit younger players and transfers differently. He’ll be among the veterans helping them get ready for the setting that awaits them on Saturday.
The message from Sarkisian has been simple: absorb it.
“Coach Sark says it all the time - ‘Hey, take it in,’” Kanu said. “That’s why a lot of us walk around the stadium before the game.”
For Texas, the Cotton Bowl experience goes beyond the football itself. Sarkisian said the rivalry’s surroundings are part of what makes it so memorable, from the State Fair to the sounds and smells that come with it.
“I love all of that that this thing comes with,” Sarkisian said. “I love that it’s at the State Fair - the smell of corndogs, the funnel cakes and all that.
It’s so special. It’s so unique, and I do not take it lightly, but I would not change it for anything.
I think being there at the old Cotton Bowl is very, very special.”
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