With more than a week until kickoff at the Cotton Bowl, the Longhorns are favored by more than two touchdowns.
In a rare afternoon addition of the Red River Showdown, the No. 2 Texas Longhorns are early 14.5-point favorites over the No. 19 Oklahoma Sooners for the Oct. 12 matchup at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, according to FanDuel.
For the fifth time in the last seven meetings, both teams are ranked heading into the rivalry game with the Longhorns at 5-0 and the Sooners at 4-1. The way that the two newest members of the SEC have gone about those victories are quite different, however — Texas has out-scored its five opponents 12-35 while Oklahoma struggled to beat Houston, Tulane, and Auburn while losing to then-No. 6 Tennessee.
The loss to the Volunteers was especially notable because head coach Brent Venables benched starting quarterback Jackson Arnold, the former consensus five-star prospect ranked in the top 10 of the 2023 recruiting class in favor of true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr., a dynamic runner whose future position was in some question when he signed with the Sooners.
Texas leads the all-time series 63-51-5, although Oklahoma holds a 17-8 advantage since 2000, including last year’s 34-30 upset of the No. 3 Longhorns, ultimately the only regular-season loss for head coach Steve Sarkisian’s team.
This year’s kick is at 2:30 p.m. Central on ABC.