Despite Saturday's victory against the Oklahoma Sooners, dismal weather and the Longhorns' lackluster season dampened spirits during the Texas-OU weekend football event in Dallas.
Students from both universities said the traditional tension and rivalry concentrated in the event failed to materialize this year.
"The spirit wasn't there like it was last year," said John Bartlett, a University of Oklahoma student.
The strength of Texas students' spirit was questioned by Jason Pagle, another OU alumnus.
"There weren't as many Texas people as last year," Pagle said.
Bill and Linda Steele have made the pilgrimage from Edmond, Okla., for the past 30 years, and said the schools' rivalry was sedate Saturday.
"There used to be fistfights and brawls on the steps over there," said Mr. Steele, motioning to the steps to the entrance of the Cotton Bowl stadium.
Individuals were selling tickets outside the stadium through the half and well into the third quarter, asking between $30 and $60 a ticket.
Some said the formidable law enforcement presence in Dallas' West End -- a traditional hangout for UT and OU fans during the weekend -- put a damper on the party atmosphere seen in the past.
"I think it's the safest place in Texas," said Miste Peterson, a UT sociology senior and a member of the Longhorn marching band.
Dallas police increased their presence after the shooting death of a downtown partygoer in 1992.
There has not been a death resulting from the event since 1992.
After the game, fans spread throughout the downtown Dallas vicinity.
At the Across the Street Bar Saturday night in Dallas, a longtime favorite for OU-TX revelers, UT fans celebrated the Longhorns' victory by taking advantage of the 25-cent pitchers of beer and dancing to club tunes.
To their dismay, minors entering the bar were designated with a red "Sooners" stamp at the door.
DALLAS-- Beep. Beep. Beep.
Yep, the vital signs are still there. There's no need for that mercy killing quite yet.
After being mauled by Oklahoma State last week, the situation looked critical for Texas' 1997 football season. For seven days, the victim remained comatose, almost unrecognizable. The notion of keeping all hope wheezing on life support seemed only a cruel postponement of the inevitable.
The demise of Texas was well on its way. The plug was about to be pulled on the Longhorns.
But Texas made a remarkable recovery on the floor of the Cotton Bowl Saturday, outlasting longtime rival Oklahoma 27-24 before a crowd of 75,587 at the Cotton Bowl.
Upgrade the condition to stable and hope for the best. This patient just might pull through yet.
"This is a turning point for our team," UT linebacker Dusty Renfro said. "We really needed this one. It's a big help for the rest of the season, motivation-wise."
Once-mighty Texas has yet to put two good games together, but for a day at least, running back Ricky Williams proved to be the perfect tonic for what was ailing the Longhorns.
The junior rushed for 223 yards and two touchdowns on a school-record 40 carries -- the best performance ever by a UT back against Oklahoma. With the effort, Williams moves into third place on Texas' all-time rushing charts, passing Jam Jones and Roosevelt Leaks.
The win was UT's first over OU in three years and keeps the Longhorns (3-2, 1-1) afloat in the Big 12 South divisional race.
"We've been playing unmotivated lately," Williams said. "So I made it a point to get myself motivated and to run hard. I think this is my best game since I've been here."
Oklahoma (2-4, 0-2) remains winless in conference play, dropping its second game in a row and its fifth straight away from home. The loss was particularly bitter for some of the Sooners, most of whom had never before left the Cotton Bowl in defeat.
"We didn't learn anything from this game except that losing sucks," sophomore OU quarterback Justin Fuente said. "It isn't a step backwards, but it is a setback."
Despite the floundering fortunes of the two teams involved, this year's renewal of the rivalry certainly lived up to the standards of its predecessors.
The Horns and Sooners battled to a 10-all halftime tie, after which the game truly turned into a Red River Shootout.
Texas struck the first blow after intermission when Williams dived over the goal line from a yard out, his second score of the afternoon. That run, set up by a 22-yard pass from James Brown to Cortney Epps inside the OU one-yard line, gave UT a seven-point advantage with 6:26 left in the third period.
Brown and company would stretch the lead further midway through the fourth quarter with another touchdown drive, this one covering 57 yards on five snaps. Brown capped that march by finding Bryan White on a fade pattern from 19 yards out.
White's touchdown reception, the first of his career, gave UT a 24-10 edge with just over eight minutes to go in the ball game.
"I told myself to go out there and make something happen," White said. "I knew we needed someone to go out and make plays."
But the Sooners countered faster than you could say De'Mond Parker.
Smokey the Cannon's two-gauge blast had scarcely finished heralding the UT score before the OU tailback had taken a hand-off, burst through the Texas line, and zig-zagged 44 yards to paydirt.
In all, Parker gobbled up 291 yards of Cotton Bowl turf on the ground Saturday, a career high. The sophomore Sooner fell just three yards shy of OU's single game rushing record set by Greg Pruitt in 1971.
"We tried to slow him down," Renfro said of Parker. "But he's really slippery and shifty. You never want anybody to get 200 yards, but when you win it means you held them enough."
The Longhorns' next possession stalled at the Oklahoma 34, but Phil Dawson booted a 51-yard kick through the uprights to push the Texas lead back to two scores.
The kick was Dawson's 14 consecutive successful attempt, breaking the previous UT mark of 13 straight held by Jeff Ward.
Dawson's record-setter, made with 4:57 to play, also turned out to be the game winner.
Barely two minutes later, Parker was again racing for the end zone -- this time on a 66-yard gallop -- to cut the margin to three. But UT's Williams ran for a pair of first downs after the ensuing kickoff, and the Horns were able to run out the clock on the Sooners.
"I told the team before the game I never wanted to win a game more in my whole life," Dawson said. "I would've settled for only an extra point if we had won. To have that [51-yarder] go through was just icing on the cake."
The Texas defense, much-maligned in recent weeks, gave up a lot of acreage but was still able to put together its best performance of the season.
Oklahoma racked up 402 yards of total offense, but almost 75 percent of that amount was accounted for by super soph Parker alone. The Sooners converted only four of 16 third down attempts and one of two fourth down tries.
"We decided we wanted to start playing," said UT defensive end Aaron Humphrey, who led Texas with 12 total tackles. "I think we did our job. If you take away a few big plays, they don't have hardly anything."
The Sooners did seem to have mighty fine aim when shooting themselves in the foot, though. OU was penalized 10 times for 74 yards, including two costly third down penalties that kept Texas' first touchdown drive alive.
A holding infraction also nullified a 65-yard Parker touchdown dash, and the Sooners eventually were forced to punt on that possession.
"It's a little frustrating," OU's Fuente said. "You just can't make mistakes like that and win a close game against a good team. We proved that."
The win leaves Texas tied with 3-2 Texas Tech and still chasing undefeated Oklahoma State and Texas A&M for overall supremacy in the Big 12 South. A loss probably would have been fatal to any remaining Longhorn visions of a conference title. Texas is hanging by a thread. Saturday's victory keeps that thread intact.
"I want to re-emphasize how important this game was," Dawson said. "It goes deeper than anything the fans know about, it's in the heart."
DALLAS -- Maybe some of the luster had indeed faded from Texas-Oklahoma weekend. Perhaps Saturday's contest did feature two teams past their prime, with all thoughts of national championships and Heisman trophies far behind them.
But the second Saturday in October has always meant a showcase of college football's finest at the Cotton Bowl, and that didn't change this year. For as the struggling Longhorns and Sooners battled for the 92nd time, two of the nation's premier rushers ran rampant through both the mud and the record books.
Before the Horns' 27-24 win was over, De'Mond Parker (291 yards) had scampered for more yards than any Sooner ever had against Texas, while Ricky Williams (223 yards) had bruised his way for more yards than any Longhorn ever had against Oklahoma.
And after all was said and done, there was little doubt as to who stole the show.
"We saw two of the best backs in college football out there today," Texas coach John Mackovic said.
The game-winning performance was especially rewarding for Williams, who also added his 10th and 11th touchdowns of the year. Not only did the contest help his team bounce back from last week's loss at Oklahoma State, but it also served to shed Williams' reputation of subpar play in important games.
"I think this was my best game since I've been here [at Texas]," said Williams, who gained 156 of his yards after contact, the most of his career. "People said that I didn't come to play in the big games, but I think I stepped up when the team needed me."
Although "Little Earl" didn't carry the Horns' offense by himself Saturday, his success was essential in freeing up the Texas passing attack, something the team has been trying to achieve all year.
Williams said the Horns ran only "four or five" different running plays Saturday, and when Oklahoma showed no signs of being able to stop them, Texas decided to stick with what was working.
"Before the game, we decided that we needed to run the ball and eat up the clock to keep the defense off the field," Texas quarterback James Brown said. "Ricky's a great running back. You give him the ball and he makes plays."
But on almost every occasion that Williams took control, Parker was there to answer, usually in a lightning-quick fashion.
While Williams gained his yardage steadily throughout the day by mercilessly pounding the Oklahoma front seven, Parker grabbed his glory in bunches. The fleet-footed Sooner earned 156 of his 291 yards on only three carries, including a pair of long scoring runs that kept Oklahoma close in the fourth quarter.
"You can't say enough about [Parker]," OU quarterback Justin Fuente said. "The effort he gave today was incredible."
Parker's outing, which represented the second-best rushing performance in OU history, put a damper on a day in which the Texas defense showed signs of breaking out of a season-long slump.
The Horns stopped OU on 12 of 16 third down conversions, and exhibited their first consistent penetration into an opponent's backfield since playing Rutgers on opening day. But in what has become a continuing trend for the Texas defense, the Horns were unable to contain a quick back on the outside.
"They didn't pound the ball down our throats or anything," defensive end Aaron Humphrey said. "If we could have stopped a couple of big plays, it would have been a blowout."
Fortunately for Texas, Parker wound up one big play too short. The final five of Williams' 40 carries ate up the game's closing seconds on Texas' last drive, and the dreadlocked star said afterwards that he was perfectly happy letting Parker having all the big runs for once.
"It all depends on what kind of situation your team is in," Williams said of the differing game plans of Texas and OU. "[Parker's] team needed the big play and my team needed to just grind out the clock, and I think we both did a good job."
DALLAS -- It's hard to understand why the career of Texas wide receiver Courtney Epps has had more stoppin' and goin' than Interstate 35's bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic.
Speeding out of Dallas after graduating from Carter High, Epps slowed to a crawl by being redshirted his freshman season in 1993 at Tennessee. He then picked up the pace in '94 by becoming Peyton Manning's sporadically used target.
Changing lanes in 1995, Epps came to a stop and had to sit out after transferring to Texas while searching for a place to make an impact. Idling along as fall drills began in '96, Epps found his hood up and engine stalled as a strained hamstring and a torn tendon forced him out of the lineup.
But after Saturday's four-catch, 51-yard performance against Oklahoma, Epps proved to himself, and to the UT coaching staff, that he's back on the road and headed for the fast lane.
It may sound like a long journey, but for Epps, just load up the trunk with talent and faith, and things will work out just fine.
"In the scripture, Romans chapter four, verse [eighteen] says that against all hope, Abraham had hope," said Epps, the scripture-quoting senior who had a career day against the Sooners.
"People were talking about how I was washed up and that I was going away, but God has revealed his power through my life. And even through all that, I'm still here."
Epps became the first member of the much-maligned Longhorn receiving corps to have a good day as quarterback James Brown continued to have passes dropped and balls bounce off chests in a game that was dominated by both teams' running attacks.
Starter Bryan White, who has dropped his fair share of passes this season, held onto a 19-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter, but that was only after allowing a potential 17-yard touchdown grab go through his mitts in the first.
"I can't let those drops bother me, because that's not me," White said of his day (three catches for 52 yards). "I think the strongest point in my receiving is my hands, because I catch everything. I just knew that I couldn't let those drops early in the game keep me down."
The Longhorn passing attack seemed down for the count against Oklahoma State.
And it seemed like UT was in store for more of the same against OU as bobbled balls and greasy hands interrupted Texas' first three offensive drives.
Brown & Co. started off shaky, but seven players ended up catching 188 yards of Cotton Bowl turf.
But at one point in the game, Brown watched freshman Kwame Cavil end up falling all over himself on two consecutive misses as ABC television watched Brown just shake his head in disgust.
"It was the best game the receivers have had all season," Brown, who finished 14-of-28 with no interceptions, said. "We didn't really do anything different, we just needed to go back to the basics and make things work."
When Texas reverts back to basics, it means that the offense uses the pass to set up the run.
But on Saturday, the team's best play was to give the ball to halfback Ricky Williams and get out of the way. Williams finished with 223 yards and two touchdowns.
"Last week, we did the same thing, but we dropped a couple of passes," Williams said. "This week we completed the passes, and it made a big difference. A really big difference."
Injuries have taken the two best receiving threats the Longhorns had this season.
Dustin Armstrong and Wane McGarity are gone for the year, leaving head coach John Mackovic and Brown to play with Epps (one career start) and White, who's longest catch ever was a 41-yarder against Hawaii in 1995.
"We needed to put two players with the most experience at the position on the field," Brown said. "We put veteran receivers in to accomplish our goal."