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In a bygone period of college football, Oklahoma's goal for this weekend's clash at the State Fair in Dallas would have been straightforward: wreck Texas' season. For roughly a hundred years, that kind of sabotage was entirely possible. A struggling team could step into the Cotton Bowl on the second Saturday of October, crush the aspirations of a superior opponent, and leave both rivals to wallow in misery for the next two months.
But that scenario won't unfold on Saturday. It can't anymore. Not because the unranked Sooners lack the ability to topple the No. 1 team in the nation—the Longhorns could very well lose the game. The difference is that in the era of a 12-team playoff, there's minimal risk of Texas losing anything beyond that single contest. The stakes of early-autumn showdowns have diminished, and that holds true for rivalries that don't even carry the 'Red River' label.
Take this Saturday, for example. On the same day Oklahoma and Texas square off in Dallas, two of the most decorated programs of the past twenty years are scheduled to meet in a massive showdown in Alabama, assuming the weather cooperates. If the No. 6 Crimson Tide defeat No. 2 Georgia, what will that earn them in December? Perhaps a first-round bye. On the other hand, the Bulldogs could lose Saturday and still secure one of those byes anyway.
This is the tradeoff that arrived with postseason expansion, and if certain influential figures get their way, it will become even more pronounced in the years ahead. As of Thursday afternoon, the College Football Playoff and ESPN were still inside a 30-day negotiating window, with both parties weighing a 24-team format set to begin next year. That window was scheduled to close on Friday. If those in charge choose to double the current playoff field—whether next season or later—there will be two ways to interpret it.
On one hand, mid-November matchups between three-loss Missouri and three-loss Texas A&M (or perhaps between one-loss UTSA and one-loss North Texas) will carry more significance than they once did. On the other hand, games like Texas-Oklahoma and Georgia-Alabama will mean less than ever before. This isn't to suggest they would mean nothing at all, or that they wouldn't remain special. After all, fans still enjoy watching the Seahawks face the Patriots and the Chiefs take on the Bills during the NFL regular season, even though none of those individual games can make or break a team's championship aspirations.
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But the magnitude of mid-October—and of late September, early November, and every week of the regular season—used to be a core part of college football's allure. If a coach at Oklahoma or Texas couldn't win in Dallas, that failure sometimes was enough to not only ruin a season but also a career. Regardless of what happened at the Cotton Bowl, it felt like there would be consequences. These days? Through his first four seasons as the Sooners' head coach, Brent Venables lost to the Longhorns three times. In all those defeats, his team failed to score a touchdown. And even so, in the days leading up to this season's opener, while bidding against no other apparent suitors, in a revenue-sharing, transfer-portal era in which long-term coaching contracts have never seemed less prudent, Oklahoma extended Venables' deal to pay him $63 million over the next six years.
Somewhere, Mack Brown, Gary Gibbs, Tom Herman, and the spirits of countless other former coaches are wondering how Venables managed to pull that off. Weren't they all held to the fire every time they made it look even for a second like the school on the other side of the Red River had an edge? And now a guy who's been embarrassed in that series over and over again gets a raise out of it? Again, there's a flip side to this. If Texas-Oklahoma doesn't make or break a coach anymore, that means other parts of the season carry more importance than they used to.
But it's still fun to pretend it's like it used to be, and few settings preserve that illusion quite like the Cotton Bowl in October. And even if more than 90,000 people might know better, there will be moments when they trick themselves into feeling the same old desperation that comes from the same old stakes. Then the Sooners can look at the bright side. They might not be able to ruin the Longhorns' season. But they still can ruin their week.
Subscribe: There's more to San Antonio with the Express-News. Subscribe today for just 25 cents. This article originally published at How a new era has changed stakes of Texas-Oklahoma rivalry.
Originally reported by yahoo.