Oklahoma Sooners just beat Texas Longhorns for a second time in the same week, and it was once again an unranked upset win
The Oklahoma Sooners are on fire against the Texas Longhorns this week, beating them in football and now in volleyball.
The Oklahoma Sooners have beaten the Texas Longhorns twice in the span of a week, and it doesn’t get much better than that. Everyone saw the Red River Rivalry game at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. OU beat No. 1 Texas. Fewer people saw what came next: the Oklahoma volleyball team knocked off No. 9 Texas at home in straight sets.
The Sooners are unranked. Texas came in as a top-10 team. Oklahoma swept them anyway. I won’t pretend to know much about volleyball. Plenty of you are big Sooners volleyball fans, and a lot of you were in the building for this one.
Here’s what I do know: any time OU beats Texas, it’s worth celebrating. The video from the end of the match showed exactly that. Players and fans went wild. The crowd wasn’t the size of a football crowd, but nobody in crimson and cream is complaining.
Sooners volleyball dominated where football had to survive
The two wins were very different. The volleyball match was pure domination. Oklahoma never dropped a set against a ninth-ranked team, and it closed the night with a 30-28 win in the final set.
The football game was a fight from start to finish. The offense struggled badly in the first half, and for a stretch it looked like Texas might blow Oklahoma out if the Longhorns ever found a rhythm. They never did, because the Sooners hung around.
Remember the team’s mantra from last year, “Hard to kill”? That is exactly the type of game Oklahoma played against Texas on Saturday, and it won the Sooners the game. OU won in all three phases, scoring a special teams touchdown, a defensive touchdown, and an offensive touchdown.
Then quarterback John Mateer put together maybe the best two possessions of his life to close it out. He made some incredible throws when the Sooners needed them most, and Oklahoma walked away with the Golden Hat. Now the volleyball team gets bragging rights in this rivalry, too.
The pressure shifts to basketball, baseball, and softball
Two down, and the rest of the OU athletic department now has a standard to match. When basketball season arrives, the Sooners have to do the same. When baseball and softball return, the same goes for them. You have to believe all three of those programs are good enough to pull it off.
To be fair, OU football may not be in a great place overall right now. This team probably isn’t going to make the College Football Playoff. But beating Texas puts you on a high regardless of what the rest of the season looks like, and as a program, football is still in a good spot. The same is true for Oklahoma athletics as a whole:
Baseball is coming off a National Championship. Volleyball just beat No. 9 Texas at home. Women’s basketball will likely be one of the country’s best teams again after a strong season last year. Men’s basketball is on the rise, with Porter Moser recruiting at a high level and making some nice moves. Softball is a dynasty and will compete for a national championship as always.
Football has the Golden Hat, volleyball has a signature win, and the spring sports carry national title expectations. Either way, Oklahoma sports look pretty good right now, and it always helps when you beat Texas.
