Top-Ranked Texas Meets Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl

Oklahoma meets Texas on Saturday, October 10, 2026, at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, with kickoff at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC. It is the 122nd meeting of the Red River Rivalry and the third as Southeastern Conference rivals, and it pairs top-ranked Texas (4-0, 1-0 SEC) with an unranked Oklahoma team that is 2-2 and 0-1 in the league. Texas has won the last two games in the series, 34-3 in 2024 and 23-6 in 2025, and is favored by 7.5 points. Both teams were off last week. The featured night game is No. 2 Georgia at No. 6 Alabama, with College GameDay on site, which should draw a huge TV audience.

Texas has been No. 1 in the AP poll for a month, since it beat top-ranked Ohio State 24-23 on September 12 after trailing by 20 points in the fourth quarter, and it followed with a 20-17 win at Tennessee on September 26. Oklahoma began the season No. 10, lost 17-10 at Michigan and 41-13 at Georgia, and has scored more than 17 points only once. Quarterback John Mateer committed three turnovers in a row against Georgia, which led 28-0 at halftime, and Oklahoma coach Brent Venables has said Mateer remains the starter.

The economic scoreboard also favors Texas, which added 159,400 jobs over the year to August, the most of any state, while Oklahoma's payrolls rose 0.7 percent and its unemployment rate climbed 0.9 percentage point to 4.3 percent, the second-largest increase among the states, behind Connecticut. Oklahoma City is also losing two Fortune 500 companies, Devon Energy and Expand Energy, whose headquarters are moving to Houston.

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Week Five in Review: Vols Top Auburn, Missouri Routs Florida

Texas and Oklahoma were both off in Week Five, while Tennessee beat Auburn 24-14 at Neyland Stadium, the game we previewed last week, and covered the 7.5-point line. DeSean Bishop carried 34 times for 220 yards and three touchdowns, the Vols outrushed the Tigers 237 yards to 186 and Auburn quarterback Byrum Brown threw two interceptions. Tennessee is 4-1 and rose two spots to No. 15 in the AP poll, while Auburn fell to 3-2.

The biggest surprise came in Columbia, where Missouri routed Florida 45-17. Missouri outgained the Gators 560 yards to 325, running back Jamal Roberts rushed for 211 yards and three touchdowns and quarterback Austin Simmons threw for 340 yards. The AP poll moved Missouri up 11 spots to No. 14 and dropped Florida eight spots to No. 16, a week after the Gators beat Ole Miss 52-28. Texas plays Florida next, on October 17.

Alabama beat Mississippi State 56-23 and Georgia beat Vanderbilt 38-14, so No. 2 Georgia meets No. 6 Alabama at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC with both teams 5-0. LSU beat McNeese 63-14 and moved up a spot to No. 10, and Ole Miss, off in Week Five, held at No. 9.

Nine of the 25 teams in the AP poll are from the SEC, including five of the top ten, and Texas received 61 first-place votes. Elsewhere, Miami won at Clemson 41-13, Ohio State won at Iowa 31-14, Notre Dame defeated a surprisingly feisty North Carolina 37-26 as a 21.5-point favorite and Pittsburgh entered the poll at No. 25 with a 5-0 record.

Sources: ESPN; CBS Sports; Fox Sports; the Associated Press; NCAA.com; theScore; Dimers; Covers; Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Auburn athletics.

Week Six Look-Ahead: Georgia at Alabama and the Rest of the Slate

The biggest game outside Dallas is No. 2 Georgia at No. 6 Alabama on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC at Bryant-Denny Stadium, with both teams 5-0 and 3-0 in the SEC. Alabama is a 1.5-point favorite after Georgia opened as a 3-point favorite, and totals run from 51.5 to 55.5 depending on the book. Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell, a redshirt freshman who has started all five games, has thrown for 1,414 yards, 11 touchdowns and two interceptions, and the Crimson Tide has scored at least 45 points in all five games. Georgia has not allowed more than 20 points in a game and gives up 13.4 a game, and quarterback Gunner Stockton threw for 295 yards and three touchdowns against Vanderbilt.

Alabama leads the series 45-27-4 and has won three of the last four meetings, 27-24 in the 2023 SEC title game, 41-34 in Tuscaloosa in 2024 and 24-21 in Athens last September. Georgia won the rematch in last December's SEC title game, 28-7. Georgia has not won in Tuscaloosa since 2007, when Matthew Stafford threw the winning touchdown in a 26-23 overtime win, and Georgia coach Kirby Smart is 2-7 against Alabama. The 2024 game in Tuscaloosa drew 12.0 million viewers on ABC, the network's largest regular-season audience since 2017, and last September's game in Athens drew 10.4 million.

Hurricane Isaias, which had 80 mph winds Thursday morning, is expected to come ashore near Gulf Shores late Friday or early Saturday and move north across Alabama, with the worst weather in Tuscaloosa from Saturday morning into early afternoon. The kickoff has not changed and forecasters expect the storm to clear before then, but it could make travel hazardous for fans.

Georgia travels to Oxford on November 7 to face Ole Miss, which ended the third-seeded Bulldogs' season last January with a 39-34 win in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl, on a 47-yard field goal by Lucas Carneiro with six seconds left. We have written about Alabama earlier this season and will focus on Georgia for that game. Before then, Georgia hosts Auburn on October 17 and has an open date on October 24, and No. 9 Ole Miss (3-1) visits Vanderbilt this Saturday.

No. 7 Indiana visits unbeaten Nebraska at noon, No. 14 Missouri hosts Texas A&M and Florida hosts South Carolina in a game that matters to Texas, which plays the Gators on October 17. No. 13 Oregon hosts unbeaten No. 21 UCLA, No. 10 LSU visits Kentucky and No. 19 USC visits Penn State in the other prime-time game, with Penn State favored by 1.5 points. Notre Dame hosts Stanford as a 37.5-point favorite.

Table 2. Other big games on Saturday, October 10, with AP rankings of October 4. Lines are from sportsbook previews published this week and move daily. Sources: ESPN, the Associated Press, FanDuel Research, Covers and Sports Illustrated.

Where Texas and Oklahoma Stand Entering Week Six

Texas has beaten two top-15 teams and outscored its opponents 133-53. The Longhorns opened with a 59-7 win over Texas State, beat Ohio State 24-23 in Austin after trailing 23-3 entering the fourth quarter, beat UTSA 30-6 and survived Tennessee 20-17, where they sacked quarterback Faizon Brandon ten times and the Vols recovered a dropkicked onside kick that the SEC later said should have been penalized. Quarterback Arch Manning has completed 73 of 115 passes for 862 yards, seven touchdowns and three interceptions, and the running game, at under four yards per carry, has been the weaker side of the offense.

Oklahoma has lost both of its road games and has topped 17 points only once. The Sooners opened with a 51-0 win over UTEP, lost 17-10 at Michigan, beat New Mexico 14-6 and lost 41-13 at Georgia, where they turned the ball over four times and trailed 28-0 at the half. Oklahoma averages 99 rushing yards a game, next to last in the SEC, and its offensive line has allowed 13 sacks. Mateer has completed 72 of 109 passes for 883 yards, eight touchdowns and four interceptions, and a backup-quarterback competition has been reported, though Venables has said Mateer remains the starter.

Table 3. 2026 results through Week Five (both teams were off October 3). Sources: school athletics sites, ESPN, the Associated Press and the AP poll of October 4, 2026.

The Red River Rivalry

The Red River Rivalry is played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas during the State Fair of Texas, with the stadium split evenly between burnt orange and crimson. The series began in 1900, and Texas leads all-time 65-51-5 after winning 34-3 in 2024 and 23-6 in 2025, the first two games of the SEC era. Oklahoma won 16 of the 26 meetings from 2000 through 2025, however, including seven of the ten games in the 2010s, and Texas has won three of the last five.

Oklahoma won 55-48 in 2021, Texas won 49-0 in 2022 and Oklahoma won 34-30 in 2023, the last Red River game before either team joined the SEC. Oklahoma has not scored a touchdown against Texas since that game, settling for a field goal in the 34-3 loss in 2024 and two field goals in the 23-6 loss in 2025.

Through the 2025 season Texas has 972 wins, tied with Notre Dame for fourth all time, and Oklahoma has 960, sixth. Oklahoma claims seven national championships (the most recent in 2000) and seven Heisman Trophy winners, the latest Kyler Murray in 2018, while Texas claims four national championships (the most recent in 2005) and two Heisman winners, Earl Campbell in 1977 and Ricky Williams in 1998.

Sources: Texas and Oklahoma athletics; Wikipedia; NCAA records. All-time win totals differ by a game or two across sources.

The University of Texas

The University of Texas at Austin opened on September 15, 1883, with 221 students and eight professors, after the Texas Constitution of 1876 called for a public university. It grew steadily into law, engineering and medicine, and the discovery of oil on university-owned land in West Texas in 1923 gave the Permanent University Fund the royalties that have financed its growth ever since.

The GI Bill swelled enrollment after World War II, and the university began to integrate in 1950. That year the Supreme Court's decision in Sweatt v. Painter forced the law school to admit Heman Sweatt. The university, a member of the Association of American Universities since 1929, reached a record enrollment of about 55,000 students in fall 2025, up 2.1 percent from the prior year, including about 44,300 undergraduates.

Michael Dell started his company in a UT dormitory room in 1984, Rex Tillerson earned his civil engineering degree there before becoming chief executive of ExxonMobil and Lady Bird Johnson graduated in 1933. The Longhorns began playing football in 1893, have won four national championships and reached the College Football Playoff semifinals after both the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Texas went 10-3 in 2025, beating Michigan in the Citrus Bowl, but missed the playoff after losses to Ohio State, Florida and Georgia.

Austin and the Texas Economy

Austin is the fastest-growing of Texas's four largest metros, with a population of about 2.62 million in July 2025, up 2.1 percent in a year. The metro's gain of 53,796 residents ranked sixth in the nation by number, and the city of Austin now has more than one million residents. All four of the large Texas metros ranked among the nation's ten largest numeric gains, led by Houston (+126,720) and Dallas-Fort Worth (+123,557).

Dell Technologies is based in Round Rock, Tesla builds the Model Y and Cybertruck at its Gigafactory east of downtown and Samsung is building a $37 billion semiconductor campus in Taylor. The University of Texas supplies engineering, computer science and business graduates, and the Dell Medical School has added a health care and biotechnology base.

Job growth has cooled from the pace of 2025. The metro added 27,200 jobs in 2025 on an annual-average basis, a 2.0 percent gain that Opportunity Austin reports was the fastest among the 50 largest U.S. metros, but payrolls rose 1.2 percent over the 12 months to August, or about 17,000 jobs. That trails Houston (1.3 percent) and leads Dallas-Fort Worth (1.0 percent), Oklahoma City (0.7 percent) and San Antonio (0.5 percent). Information employment, which includes much of the technology sector, fell 5.5 percent, while manufacturing (2.9 percent), leisure and hospitality (2.4 percent) and financial activities (2.1 percent) grew. The metro's unemployment rate was 3.9 percent in August, not seasonally adjusted, compared with 3.8 percent a year earlier.

Hutto and Williamson County approved incentives in August for a Blue Origin manufacturing facility that could bring $650 million or more of investment and more than 2,000 jobs at an average salary near $88,000, although the company has not publicly confirmed the project. Apollo Global Management chose Austin on August 3 for a new innovation and emerging-technology hub, and Otsuka and ICU Medical broke ground in August on a $500 million expansion of their North Austin campus.

The University of Oklahoma

The University of Oklahoma was created in 1890 in Norman, 17 years before Oklahoma became a state. It held its first classes in 1892, rebuilt quickly after a fire destroyed its only building in 1903. Its meteorology program, established in the 1960s, anchors the National Weather Center.

OU's football prominence began under coach Bud Wilkinson, whose teams won 47 straight games from 1953 to 1957. The program claims seven national championships (1950, 1955, 1956, 1974, 1975, 1985 and 2000) and has produced seven Heisman Trophy winners, most recently Baker Mayfield in 2017 and Kyler Murray in 2018. Oklahoma went 10-3 in 2025 and lost 34-24 to Alabama in the first round of the College Football Playoff. Notable alumni include Carl Albert, the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Fred Haise, the Apollo 13 astronaut.

The Norman campus enrolled 32,662 students in fall 2025, up 5.8 percent, and total enrollment across all campuses reached 36,510. The 2025 freshman class of 6,251 was the largest in state history, and OU reports that this fall's class of 6,437 is the sixth straight record.

Norman and the Oklahoma City Metro

Norman, about 20 miles south of Oklahoma City, was founded in 1889 during the Land Run, when settlers staked claims in the newly opened Unassigned Lands, and was named for Abner Norman, a federal surveyor. It became home to the University of Oklahoma in 1890 and hosted the Naval Air Technical Training Center during World War II.

Norman is now Oklahoma's third-largest city, with 130,943 residents in July 2025, up 2.3 percent from the 2020 census, and OU is its anchor employer. The Oklahoma City metro, with about 1.51 million residents, is the state's economic center, with aerospace (Boeing and Tinker Air Force Base), energy, health care and state government. Metro payrolls rose 0.7 percent over the year to August, with private education and health services up 6.3 percent and government down 3.0 percent, and the unemployment rate was 3.9 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

Oklahoma City is losing two Fortune 500 headquarters to Houston. Devon Energy said on February 2 that the company created by its merger with Houston-based Coterra Energy would be based in Houston, and Expand Energy, the successor to Chesapeake, said a week later that its leadership would relocate there. Both say their Oklahoma City operations will stay, and the Wall Street Journal reports that Devon has about 1,000 employees in the city and Expand about 500. Oil and gas employment in the region has fallen by more than half since 2018 to about 10,000 jobs, according to the Journal, though the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber says the industry still accounts for about 13 percent of regional output.

Chief executives sit on the boards and fund the projects that shape a city, and Devon opened a $750 million downtown tower in 2012 while Chesapeake helped build the river district that now hosts Olympic training. The employment data show little effect so far because both companies say their operations teams will stay, and we suspect the effect will show up more in philanthropy, professional services and civic leadership than in payroll counts. Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt told the Journal that locating in Houston is like moving a film company to Hollywood. Houston has long been called the energy capital of the world.

Oklahoma Primary Aluminum's planned smelter in Inola, near Tulsa, would represent more than $4 billion of investment and over 1,000 permanent jobs, according to a September 23 impact study released by the company. Oklahoma Commerce CEO John Budd called it the largest single project in state history. In Oklahoma City, KIHOMAC announced a $25 million expansion on September 17 to support Tinker Air Force Base.

Texas and Oklahoma: A State-Level Update

Texas is adding jobs faster than Oklahoma, and both states now have unemployment rates above the national rate. Texas's unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in August, down from 4.5 percent in July but up from 4.2 percent a year ago, and Oklahoma's was 4.3 percent, unchanged from July but up from 3.4 percent a year ago. The U.S. rate was 4.1 percent in August, and a year ago both states were below the national rate of 4.3 percent.

Texas added 159,400 jobs over the 12 months to August, the most of any state. California was second at 138,500. Professional and business services grew 3.1 percent, leisure and hospitality 2.2 percent and construction 1.9 percent, while information employment fell 5.3 percent. The Dallas Fed forecasts job growth of 1.2 percent for 2026, or 173,600 jobs, and says benchmark revisions lowered growth to a pace more consistent with labor supply constraints. We concur and look for hiring to pick up in coming months as large projects are completed and begin production.

Oklahoma's nonfarm employment of 1.80 million in August was up 0.7 percent from a year earlier, a change the BLS does not consider statistically significant, while the jobless rate rose 0.9 percentage point, the second-largest increase among the states. Education and health services (3.7 percent) and construction (4.2 percent) grew, while manufacturing (-0.8 percent), information (-0.6 percent) and professional and business services (-0.3 percent) declined. Government, the largest employer at 373,100 jobs, was flat.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; U.S. Census Bureau; FRED; Dallas Federal Reserve Bank; Opportunity Austin; Williamson County; Oklahoma Primary Aluminum; Oklahoma Department of Commerce; Greater Oklahoma City Chamber; the Wall Street Journal; University of Texas at Austin; University of Oklahoma.

Austin and Norman, Side by Side

Table 4. Austin and Norman, side by side. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; university enrollment reports; state and local economic development agencies.

Previewing the Game

Texas is 1-0 in the SEC, holds the No. 1 ranking and plays Florida in Austin on October 17, a week after this game. Oklahoma is 2-2 and 0-1 in the league, and a second conference loss would make a playoff run difficult. A win would give the Sooners their first victory over Texas as an SEC member and restore some of the preseason optimism.

Table 5. Oklahoma vs. Texas, by the numbers. Sources: ESPN, the Associated Press, school athletics sites and Sports Reference.

The Sooners turned the ball over four times at Georgia and Texas sacked Tennessee's quarterback ten times, so keeping Mateer upright behind a line that has allowed 13 sacks comes first, and the running game averages only 99 yards. Texas averages under four yards per carry and needed a late rally to beat Ohio State, which gives Oklahoma something to work with.

Texas needs to protect Manning, who was sacked six times at Tennessee, and to avoid the slow starts that left it trailing Ohio State by 20 points, though its defense has allowed only 13 points a game. Manning is not on the SEC availability report. Texas lists lineman Jordan Coleman as out and receiver Kaliq Lockett and defensive tackle Justus Terry as doubtful, and running back Hollywood Smothers, who missed the Tennessee game, is off the report. Oklahoma lists four players as out, including receiver Trell Harris and cornerback Jacobe Johnson, and left tackle Michael Fasusi, who has not played since Week One, as doubtful.

Texas was an 8.5-point favorite at DraftKings on Monday and is 7.5 at most books on Thursday, with a total of 39.5 points that implies a score of about 24-16. Moneylines of -325 for Texas and +260 for Oklahoma imply a Texas win probability of about 76 percent before the bookmaker's margin. The National Weather Service forecast for Dallas is sunny with a high near 86.

The Bottom Line

We expect Texas to win, though 7.5 points is a lot to lay in a game with a total near 40. The Longhorns have won the last two games in the series by 31 and 17 points. Oklahoma is still looking for its first win over Texas as an SEC member, and the Sooners have scored three field goals and no touchdowns in the last two games. We expect Oklahoma to be competitive, but an upset would require almost perfect execution by the Sooners and a bevy of mistakes by Texas.

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Mark Vitner
Chief Economist, Southeast Economic Advisors

About this report

This Week Six preview is published by Southeast Economic Advisors and pairs an on-field preview with an economic outlook for the two communities that host the participating universities. Economic figures come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, FRED, the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank and the sources cited in each section, and are subject to revision. State unemployment rates are seasonally adjusted; the Austin and Oklahoma City metro rates are not. Football statistics run through Week Five of 2026. Odds and storm forecasts are as of October 8, 2026. The Associated Press poll cited is from Sunday, October 4, 2026.

This material is provided for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal or financial advice. Betting lines and win probabilities are sourced from third-party market data and models and are subject to change.

© 2026 Southeast Economic Advisors. All rights reserved.