New leaders roam sidelines for OU, Texas
First-year coaches direct both teams for 1st time since ’47.
It’s been seven decades since the Texas-Oklahoma rivalry has enjoyed such a novelty.
But come Saturday, there will be two guys making their debuts as head coaches in the rivalry when the Longhorns take on the Sooners at the Cotton Bowl.
Tom Herman will lead the Longhorns. Lincoln Riley will direct the Sooners.
This time a year ago, Herman was the head coach at Houston, readying for a road trip to Annapolis and what would be his Cougars’ first loss of the season.
Last time the Red River Rivalry convened in Dallas, Riley was the offensive coordinator for Bob Stoops and eight months away from his sudden promotion to OU head coach.
Riley said Monday that Stoops hasn’t given him any advice about how to deal with the enormity of the mid-October game. As the offensive coordinator at OU, Riley saw the Sooners go 1-1 against Texas.
“I almost think it’s one of those things you have to experience a little yourself,” Riley said. “You can sit there and explain it to people — and I watched it growing up and all this and that — but until you’ve actually truly been a part of it, it’s difficult to explain.
“Bob was pretty good about not making anything much bigger than it was. That was kind of his approach to these games. But you can tell that this one was always a little bit different. I think I learned that. I listened to him before, but after going through a couple of them, you certainly respect it even more.”
Herman also has a twogame history with the series. He was a graduate assistant for Mack Brown at Texas from 1999-2000. He witnessed Stoops losing his debut in the series — 38-28 in 1999 — but Herman also was on the sidelines the next year when Stoops and the Sooners thrashed UT 63-14 on the way to a national title.
“That score has been embedded in my brain,” Herman said Monday.
First-year head coaches in the series are 8-9-1, and here are some coaching debut highlights:
Darrell Royal, who experienced the rivalry as a Soon- ers quarterback, lost his first game against Oklahoma as Texas’ head coach. That was in 1957. Royal didn’t suffer another loss to the Sooners until 1966.
Brown won his first game in 1998. So did Ed Price (1951), Fred Akers (1977) and John Mackovic (1992). David McWilliams, who won every Texas-OU game when he played for Royal, lost his first as a head coach in 1987. Charlie Strong did, too, in 2014.
Oklahoma’s Barry Switzer rolled the Longhorns 52-13 in his first game in 1973. John Blake won in overtime with the Sooners in 1996, nearly 30 years after Chuck Fairbanks lost in his debut in 1967. OU’s Gary Gibbs also lost in 1989, and Howard Schnellenberger posted a tie against Texas in 1995.
The only other time this passionate rivalry, at least in modern times, has featured a new face on both sidelines of the Cotton Bowl was in 1947. Blair Cherry, the longtime assistant to eventual College Football Hall of Fame inductee Dana X. Bible, was the new guy at Texas. Bud Wilkinson, a Sooners icon, was in charge at Oklahoma. At 31, he was the Sooners’ youngest-ever head coach.
Cherry was groomed by Bible to be his successor, but Cherry still made some major changes in his initial season in Austin, switching the Longhorns from the single-wing, which looked a lot like today’s wildcat, to the T-formation. Cherry’s quarterback was Bobby Layne, an eventual Hall of Fame honoree for both college football and the NFL, and UT had no problems dispensing with the Sooners 34-14. Texas finished the season 10-1, the champion of the Sugar Bowl and the fifthranked team in the country.
OU did OK the rest of the way, winning a Big Eight title with a record of 7-2-1. Wilkinson’s loss in his series debut didn’t matter much in hindsight. He won nine of his next 10 against the Longhorns. double-overtime win.
Ehlinger is now 2-1 as UT’s starter as the Longhorns (3-2, 2-0) sit atop the Big 12 standings along with TCU.
So after watching the game and then watching the film on Sunday, Herman still doesn’t feel comfortable addressing reporters and saying that Ehlinger is the starter? “No,” Herman said. Was there something Ehlinger didn’t do?
“Sam made a lot of mistakes,” Herman said. “There’s no doubt he also played really well, tough and physical. But I don’t know what good it does me to tell (OU defensive coordinator) Mike Stoops and (head coach) Lincoln Riley what I feel about my quarterback situation.”
Up in Norman, Okla., Mayfield isn’t buying the ruse. The Sooners are likely to be far more worried about Ehlinger’s running ability than Buechele’s.
Asked what he knew of Ehlinger, Mayfield said, “He went to Westlake and he’s never beaten Lake Travis.”
Factually, that’s spot on. Mayfield’s Cavaliers currently have a 10-game winning streak over Ehlinger’s Chaparrals, a run that includes nine regular-season wins and one playoff victory.
Ehlinger is already acting the part of Texas’ starter. He brought boxes of doughnuts into the football building for his offensive linemen, according to a Twitter posting from a UT staff member. Ehlinger posed for a photo with guard Jake McMillon.
Dissection of everything, including the starting quarterback, is fair game when it comes to Texas-OU. All manner of personnel decisions were up for discussion on Monday.
The Longhorns have developed a curious habit of rotating running backs. Toniel Carter did get more playing time against Kansas State, as Herman promised. Carter would have one good run, then come off the field. Kyle Porter would play several snaps, then give way to Chris Warren III. Carter had six carries for 32 yards. Warren (14 yards) and Porter (13 yards) each had seven carries.
No back got extended time on any one drive. Warren was front and center when it counted, though. The 250-pounder, with some help from his friends, scored from two yards for the win.
“One, nobody has separated themselves, so the only way to find out is to let the guys play,” Herman said. Some running backs do certain things better than others. In Herman’s world, pass protection is as important as running with a low pad level.
Herman also said the coaches are “pulling our hair out” trying to find some carries for freshman Daniel Young.
“The biggest thing is that nobody’s just taken it and ran with it, no pun intended,” Herman said. “You’re going to continue to see that until somebody grabs a hold of it and goes.”
Herman also doted on the strength of the receiving corps. That became an issue over the weekend when Armanti Foreman’s father went off on social media. Armanti did not play on offense against K-State, and Derrick Foreman posted on Facebook it was because “Herman wants people to KISS HIS ASS! And my son just not built like that.”
Herman said five receivers played at “a championship level” against the Wildcats. “You gotta practice better and play better than Jerrod (Heard) and Reggie (Hemphill-Mapps). Just like anywhere,” the coach said.
Otherwise, Monday’s press conference was a rather mundane event — other than it’s Texas-OU week. Just to be sure, KEYE-TV anchor Bob Ballou asked if there had been any quarterback updates “in the last 15 minutes?”
Herman busted out laughing and said, “No update.”
Interpret that however you wish.