Herman plays it fast and loose as Texas prepares for OU

Red River Showdown is ‘one of, if not the, greatest games in college football,’ Longhorns’ coach says

By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer

AUSTIN, Texas — There’s nothing like Texas-OU week, and Longhorns head coach Tom Herman is well aware of that fact despite how he was playing it fast, loose and happy when he met Monday with the assembled media.

“This week speaks for itself,” Herman said when asked about the magnitude of playing Oklahoma. “It is one of, if not the, greatest games in college football.”

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If Herman is tense or worried about how his 11th-ranked Longhorns will perform on Saturday in the Cotton Bowl in the 115th rendition of their rivalry with the No. 6 Sooners, it sure wasn’t on display for the crowded room.

Herman yukked it up with the press even before he began his opening comments and then told a funny story about his first experience of the Red River Showdown, nearly including a slip of the middle fingers he was shot by Oklahoma fans young and old that morning in Dallas in 1999.

“My first memory, to be honest with you, is as a GA riding through the State Fair, looking out the window and literally seeing this elderly lady, had to be 80 years old, going double bird to the Texas bus,” Herman said, while nearly talking with his hands too much, “and right beside her was a boy, who looked like he was about 8-years old, doing the same.”

He even answered one reporter’s silenced but vibrating cell phone-slash-voice recorder when a telemarketer named Fred called during the proceedings, asking the salesman to call back later.

One only hopes the Longhorns (4-1, 2-0 in Big 12 Conference play) can be as watchable, and downright entertaining, as Herman was Monday, and there’s every reason to believe Texas will be ready to roll when push comes to shove (and there will be plenty of both) in Big D versus Oklahoma (5-0 overall, 2-0 in Big 12).

One thing is for sure: the Longhorns won’t be wowed by the setting, nor shy away from playing in the latest “big” game.

“We have played in some pretty big games already this year,” Herman said. “Playing LSU at home and West Virginia on the road were two pretty big, significant games for us.”

If there is one thing that separates this Oklahoma team from last year’s that beat Texas in the Big 12 Championship game before losing to Alabama in the College Football Playoff semifinals, it’s the Sooners’ defense, which has improved greatly under first-year defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.

“OU’s defense is not extremely complex in terms of coverage structure, but they’re in the right place,” Herman said. “Not very many busts, not turning guys loose. The thing that’s a bit unique is the multiplicity of their defensive front.”

The 2019 AT&T Red River Showdown is set to start at 11 a.m. Saturday on FOX.

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