Bohls: What fun is college football's greatest rivalry if there's not any Texas-OU hate?

I asked everybody I could find.

With Saturday being the final edition of the Texas-Oklahoma Big 12 football rivalry, it only seemed natural to pose the question to those on the, uh, right side of the Red River.

Do you hate Oklahoma?

No one bit. Not a single person.

Not the head coach. Not any of the Texas players. Not even the athletic director.

Nobody.

Not even a smidgen.

What in the heck in the name of Barry Switzer and Darrell Royal is going on here? Where’s the Boz when you need him? Didn’t get a single “OU sucks” out of a soul at Bellmont Hall. Crazy town. No bulletin-board material here.

Asked if he hates OU, Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte said, “I ain’t answering that. No need to stoke any fire.”

But shouldn’t he? Isn’t that in the fine print in his contract?

“Just put it this way,” Del Conte said from Birmingham, where he was attending an SEC meeting on Thursday, “I understand the gravitas of the rivalry.”

Good enough.

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In this the Year of Embrace the Hate, Texas’ farewell tour of the Big 12 after 27 seasons, nobody in burnt orange hates the team the Longhorns supposedly hate the most? No one?

So, when I asked Steve Sarkisian on Monday if it’ll be harder to embrace the hate this week since Texas and Oklahoma are in lockstep with each other as they head off into the sunset to team up with the, uh, hated SEC, he was very careful in his comments.

“We embrace it because they’re supposed to hate us,” said the smiling third-year Longhorns head coach, who's 1-1 in the series and very nearly 2-0 if he hadn’t blown a 28-7 first-half lead in his first Red River showdown in 2021.

But doesn’t that work both ways? Isn’t hate a two-way street? Not even a random act of hatred?

Sarkisian did allow that “there’s not a whole lot of love lost between ex-players and ex-coaches” on both sides. And he noted there’s a lot of crossover between coaching staffs who have competed against each other at various places. Sarkisian, for instance, coached against current OU head coach Brent Venables when Sark called plays for Alabama’s Nick Saban and Venables was the defensive coordinator for Clemson. The two split with Sarkisian winning in the 2016 national title game and losing in the 2019 championship.

Texas defensive line coach Bo Davis has been on Sarkisian’s staff since they got here and served under Mack Brown for three seasons with a 2-3 record against OU. Current safeties coach Blake Gideon started all 52 of his games at safety and went 2-2 versus the Sooners. Unfortunately, assistant coaches are not allowed to talk to the press under Sarkisian rules, but we assume Davis might have some spicy comments to say about the Sooners on the Longhorns' team bus.

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But instead, all we’ve heard is compliment after compliment from all these Boy Scouts.

Great this, great that.

Great rivalry. Best ever, says this grizzled writer who’s chronicled more than 50 of them.

A rivalry to end all rivalries

Ohio State-Michigan is intense and all, but they play home and home. Covered one of them, and it was quite entertaining. Don’t remember such goodwill in that one. It’s a terrific rivalry, but God bless ’em, they don’t divide a stadium right down the middle like it’s a State Fair funnel cake.

At least those two Big Ten schools don’t hide their hate. Heck, when Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh got on Ryan Day about an illegal Buckeyes workout, Day responded that Michigan had better hope for a mercy rule and that the Buckeyes were “going to hang 100 on them.”

Now that’s how you do rivalries.

Texas-OU is still the essence of college football. Two bordering states with feelings bordering on hate. Been playing it 118 times and counting, so it must be meaningful. Just no one is frothing at the mouth or anywhere else you can froth yet.

So the players have either been very well coached up by Sarkisian, who is clearly coaching his rear end off this season, or they genuinely hold the Sooners in high regard. At least until the opening kickoff on Saturday.

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“What they got over there is a great program being run just like ours,” Texas senior linebacker Jaylan Ford said. “You can tell it’s going to be a Top 25 matchup.”

That’s the best he’s got? Yes, it’s a showdown between two Top 25 teams, but so was Kansas. OU ain’t Kansas. There’s so much spillover of hate in general that Sooners fans still hate their old coach, who slipped away in the night to go to California of all places. So don’t tell me both sides don’t know the rules of Hatred 101.

Fellow linebacker David Gbenda followed Ford’s lead.

Asked if there’s less animosity toward OU because they’ll be SEC brethren next year, Gbenda said, “Oklahoma is a great team, and the fact they want to pursue the SEC, I’m happy for that organization and that they feel like they’re ready for it. I’m happy for them.”

So he’s happy for the Sooners? What is happening here?

Brother against brother, friend against friend

Oftentimes, this rivalry will pit families against each other with supporters on either side.

“Do I hate OU? Hey, my godbrother, (former running back) Samaje Perine, went to Oklahoma,” Texas nickel back Jahdae Barron said. “So, I don't hate anybody, but it's going to be it's going to be a wonderful matchup. So, I talked smack to his mom, Gloria, and she actually owes me a dinner.”

At last, a grudge match.

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Maybe it’s just the defensive players who are magnanimous. Let’s try the offense.

No luck.

Quinn Ewers was equally gracious and polite. A total gentleman who minded his manners.

Surely deep down he hates ’em, right? A little bit?

“Everyone’s emotions are high,” the sophomore quarterback said, unfortunately taking the high road. “I’m just fired up for the opportunity, and I couldn’t be more excited for the team. I know we’re going to practice very hard.”

So that’s a yes, Quinn?

A wide smile was the best I could get out of him. But then he’s been smiling a bunch on Saturdays.

Our memories are long, even if players' aren't

That said, it just seems so wrong that the Longhorns and Sooners might be getting along in this new era of college football detente. Where’s Dan Lanning and Coach Prime when we need ’em? Surely somebody can tap into their inner Ryan Day and go all Lou Holtz on OU.

After all, didn’t Switzer steal players from the Lone Star state his entire career, Adrian Peterson among them?

Didn’t he spy on Texas practices?

Didn’t Sooners players taunt DKR during warmups in 1976 after Royal publicly accused Switzer’s staff of hiding a spy in Memorial Stadium air-conditioning ducts and posing as a painter to glean valuable intel on Texas workouts?

Didn’t the Sooners fans yell in unison, “Sor-ry bas-tard, sor-ry bas-tard” at Royal after he called them that very ugly monicker to an Associated Press reporter when he thought the interview was over?

Didn’t Brian Bosworth trash-talk Texas players and didn't John Hagy trash-talk the Sooners back?

Didn’t OU slap a five-game losing streak on Mack Brown, who never hated anybody? At least, not outside the media.

Didn’t Sam Ehlinger and Kyler Murray get into a minor confrontation after Texas' 48-45 win in 2018 when Sammy tried to commiserate with his peer, who wasn’t in the mood, and told Murray to “take the L”?

It’s not unlike the ’60s when Texas linebacker Pat Culpepper told me and co-author John Maher for our “Bleeding Orange” book, “We hated Oklahoma. We felt we were obligated to beat them.”

Exactly.

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So this is what we’re left with. Texas and Oklahoma, two blood rivals when they weren’t in the same conference and again when they were and again starting in 2024, are coming at each other with mutual respect and admiration since they are soon to be joined at the hip in their new league.

Allies now?

On the same team, so to speak, for all but one of the 365 days.

Heck, does that mean Chris Del Conte and Joe Castiglione will share a luxury box Saturday?

This all makes for an unusual partnership for these two bitterly opposed powerhouses that regularly hurled insults at each other. And that was downtown on Commerce Street the Friday night before.

Maybe Texas and OU feel they will need each other in their corner in the years going forward. Surely they can’t depend on the Aggies to lend a helping hand because they tried to escape the shadows of these two Big 12 kingpins. We sure don’t need to teach anyone about hate between the Aggies and Longhorns, do we?

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That said, I’m pretty comfortable in saying the bad blood will boil as always and emotions will run higher than a Ryan Sanborn punt for 60 minutes Saturday, same as always.

Right, Christian Jones? He’s as mild-mannered as they come, this giant of a right tackle who’s so downright pleasant, it’s disgusting. Of course, he can be excused because while he can remember watching Tim Tebow and Jameis Winston doing their things when he was growing up, Jones was a die-hard soccer guy and spent his weekends watching Man City.

So maybe Jones doesn’t hate the Sooners, but certainly there’s a lot of dislike there. Correct?

“They’re a great team,” Jones said, not obliging. “A great team. They’re a very good team. A very well-coached team.”

We get it, we get it.

“But,” he added, “I’m pretty sure that the (Texas) fans probably dislike them a little bit.”

There you go, CJ.

And you? Do you dislike them as well, Christian?

“I respect all,” he said, “but fear none.”

OK, we’ll take it. It’s a start.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: The Texas-OU rivalry may be grand, but there's a shortage of hate