Oklahoma-Texas Football Weekend 2006

We went to the Oklahoma versus Texas football weekend in October 2006. This game is one of the biggest football events of the season. It is held on neutral ground at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The Cotton Bowl site puts the game almost equidistant from the Oklahoma campus in Norman, Oklahoma and the Texas campus in Austin, Texas (just under a 200 mile road trip).

The seats in the stadium are divided 50-50 with Oklahoma's crimson colors filling half the stadium and Texas's burnt orange colors filling the other half. This means that during the game when a big play occurs, half the stadium is screaming with delight and the other half is wringing their hands in despair. Another great plus for this game is that it is held during the Texas State Fair and the Cotton Bowl is in the fair grounds. The combination of the fair and football is simply marvelous. It is hard to believe that the Texas and Oklahoma schools have been considering changing the game to a traditional rotating home/away game in Austin and Norman.

We checked in to the Adolphus Hotel (the Plaza of the Plains) on Friday afternoon. We then put on our Oklahoma colors. The weekend starts with a big street party located in the historic west end of Dallas. We lucked out and snagged two seats at the bar in the Palm Steakhouse where we had dinner and then proceeded to tour the West End party scene as observers because we were a little old to participate.

We arrived at the Texas State Fair grounds about 11:00 am on Saturday and visited some of the attractions and toured the Midway. The game began at 2:30 pm. Sadly, Texas beat Oklahoma 28-10. Oklahoma had five turnovers and 70 yards in penalties, which is a sure way to lose to Texas. I used Candace's professional digital Canon camera with a telephoto lens and concentrated on taking pictures of Oklahoma's great running back, Adrian Peterson. I was able to capture Peterson's big run of the day, a 29 yard masterpiece that tied the game at 7 - 7. After the game, we hurried back to the Adolphus, changed, and had a great dinner at the French Room, which I think is the best restaurant in the United States.

The following photographs show the color and excitement of this great college football weekend. For those school officials who were thinking of changing the location, if you do you will join the pinheads who tried to get rid of San Francisco's cable cars because they weren't cost effective transportation. It's good news to hear that the game will still be played in the Cotton Bowl during the fair until at least 2010. See y'all next year.