The Red River Rivalry was the best of its kind in the first decade of this century. Five times from 2000 to 2009 Texas and Oklahoma met in Dallas with both teams ranked in the top five, and six times the winner went on to play for the national championship. That heat has cooled considerably this decade.
As Oklahoma has kept winning, Texas has... not. The Longhorns haven't arrived in Dallas with a top-25 ranking since 2013 and have finished in the top half of the Big 12 standings only three times in the seven seasons since the turn of the decade.
Enter Tom Herman.
The Longhorns' head coach was hired away from Houston to make the second Saturday in October matter again, and one of his first moves since arriving in Austin was to pick a fight with the biggest bully on the school yard.
On April 13, Texas landed a commitment from Casey Thompson, a 4-star quarterback from Moore, Okla., who happens to be the son and brother of former Sooners. Not satisfied with one quarterback, on Saturday Texas flipped 4-star quarterback Cameron Rising -- an Oklahoma commitment since August. And then on Wednesday the Longhorns swiped another player from Oklahoma's turf, landing 3-star defensive end Ron Tatum from Oklahoma City.
Texas currently lists six commitments, and half of them were taken from Oklahoma, figuratively or literally.
No longer willing to let Herman's acts of war slide unanswered, Bob Stoops's staff tweeted this conveniently-timed graphic just before the NFL Draft. Notice how the last few schools don't seem to be in alphabetical order.
Consider that graphic Stoops's version of this:
Here's hoping this animosity spills over to the Cotton Bowl grass this fall.