Red River Rivalry Week, Day 3 – Reverse the Curse

Harry Jung IV | October 10, 2012 at 9:18 am | 1 Comment

Fun Fact: according to Merriam-Webster, a “sooner” is defined as “a person settling on land in the early West before its official opening to settlement in order to gain the prior claim allowed by law to the first settler after official opening.” So in other words: a cheater.

However, you could’ve called them whatever you wanted from 2000-2004, but they wouldn’t care. They did their talking on the field.

But 2005 was a different story. While OU limped into the game with a 2-2 record, Texas was in the midst of possibly their best season ever, and was ready for revenge.

[VIDEO: History of the Red River Rivalry, Texas vs. Oklahoma]

You know your team isn’t performing up to rivalry standards when Peter Gardere has to appear on local Austin commercials with a “Reverse the Curse” slogan.

October 8, 2005 – (No. 2) Texas 45, Oklahoma 12

[ezjw url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms2EV70Q7X8" ]

Vince Young and the rest of the ‘Horns are finally poised to tackle a perfect season, and face USC in the Rose Bowl. To do that, they have to finally beat OU after five embarrassing losses in a row, two of which ruined a perfect Longhorn regular season. After some of the best players to EVER play at UT finished their careers 0-4 against OU (Roy Williams, Nathan Vasher, Cedric Benson, BJ Johnson, Derrick Johnson, etc.), the task seemed somewhat daunting, but instead it was just another beat down Texas dished out that season.

After a slow first quarter, freshman Jamaal Charles broke loose for an 80-yard run, and then the rout was on. Vince Young also tossed for 241 yards and 3 touchdowns, helping seal his resume for an invite to New York for the Heisman presentation, but even he wasn’t the headliner for the QB position that day.

Rhett Bomar had won the OU starting QB job by the second game of the season (they had lost their season opener to TCU at home). Bomar, from Groesbeck, Texas, had been ranked as the No. 1 high school quarterback by Rivals.com, and had Texas on the top of his list.

However, it was reported that Rhett’s dad, Jerry, advised him not to go to Texas because Mack Brown “hugs his players too much,” in reference to how Mack is too easy going on his squad. Needless to say, Rhett didn’t take part in a lot of “hugging” with the Texas defensive line this day.

The Texas defense battered Bomar all day. Rhett was 12-for-33 passing for only 94 yards and threw one interception. He also lost one fumble that Rodrique Wright took 67 yards back for the exclamation point on a the final revenge score: 45-12. Never in the history of the rivalry had the crimson side been so empty in the fourth quarter.

This game would start a 4-of-5 winning spree for Texas in the Red River Rivalry, once again submitting this game as one of the more fierce, back-and-forth rivalries in college football.

Rhett Bomar would never get to play another down against Texas after this game. Bob Stoops would dismiss him before the 2006 season because he was paid for work at Big Red Sports and Imports (a Norman car dealership, and humungous OU donor) while he had not shown up to work… ever.

Since it was a violation of NCAA rules, the Sooners vacated all of their wins in 2005, and had the season in the books as 0-4 (until it was appealed and changed back to 8-4 in early 2008).

Is that typical for the Sooners? I don’t know, it’s probably not my judgment call to make, but Merriam-Webster sure thinks it is.

Red River Rivalry Week