Austin, Texas ? For 40 minutes, Texas coach Mack Brown looked relaxed, cracked a few jokes and talked about his players, his wife and whether he’s ever had a corny dog at the State Fair of Texas.
For the record, he hasn’t. The only corn dog he’s had was back in his hometown of Cookeville, Tenn.
What he doesn’t have to talk about any more is his legacy and the ugly losing streak that dominated the Texas-Oklahoma series for five years.
From 2001-2005, the Monday before Texas played Oklahoma had to be one of the worst days of his entire year as Brown faced reporters and the tough questions about why he couldn’t seem to get one over on the Sooners and coach Bob Stoops.
That might as well be ancient history now. With two wins in the past three years and a national championship with Vince Young in 2005, the ugly past has been put to rest.
All that matters now is the No. 1 Sooners (5-0, 1-0 Big 12) vs. the No. 5 Longhorns (5-0, 1-0), the quarterback battle between Sam Bradford and Colt McCoy, the game’s impact on the national championship race, the Heisman Trophy, the Big 12, and just about everything else.
In fact, he even started talking about it while the Longhorns were walking off the field last week after beating Colorado.
“We’ll have everybody in America talking about the game,” Brown said, “and that’s what we want.”
The old Brown would have insisted fans give his team a chance to enjoy the victory. The new Brown was talking about what a big game it was and breezily spoke about OU deserving the No. 1 ranking. It was almost like he was saying “Bring ’em on.”