Gerald McCoy details 'hate' involved in Red River Showdown

For the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners, it simply doesn’t get much bigger than this. This year’s version of the Red River Showdown features both teams coming in undefeated and both teams are currently ranked inside the Top 12 in the country. It figures to be one of the more highly anticipated Oklahoma-Texas matchups in several years, due to everything at stake.

On Friday afternoon, former Sooner star Gerald McCoy jumped on The Jim Rome Show to detail the hate involved in one of the most intense rivalries in all of college football.

Check out the video below.

.@Geraldini93 on the greatness of the Red River Rivalry. pic.twitter.com/utHNiVesWf

— Jim Rome (@jimrome) October 6, 2023

Why is Oklahoma-Texas one of the all-time great rivalries in all of sports?

Gerald McCoy shares his thoughts on the Red River Showdown

“Yeah. It’s incredible. Simply because it’s not just the game itself and then it’s over with. Its a hate of this thing that lasts throughout lifetime. And to grow up as a OU fan, actually in the time I grew up, OU-Nebraska was the big thing. So I had to learn about OU-Texas,” McCoy said.

“But as I got older and got into high school, I started to learn, oh, OU-Texas is where it’s at. And I didn’t realize what it was until 2004, we drove down. You could have guys come up for junior day or whatever,” McCoy continued. “And this was Adrian Peterson’s first time touching the ball. He goes 50 down the right sideline and I said, ohhh this is the game. So, when you sign on the dotted line, you already know what this (Horns Down symbol) means. That don’t mean OU. You know what this means. And pulling up to the stadium, it’s different than walking around the State Fair. You’ve got fans beating on the bus.”

“They don’t know who it is. They don’t announce–this is OU. This is Texas. They’re just beating on the bus. OU flipping the bus off. Texas flipping the bus off. They don’t know. So, you figure out who people are as humans. Right then. Are you a good person? Bad person? Some people cheering. Some people flipping the bird. But then, when you run out that tunnel and it’s split literally down the middle. What people don’t know is the lockers are like this. OU-Texas. Texas-OU. So, when we were getting ready to come out, we’re looking at them. And there’s just police officers that split us,” the former Sooner defensive lineman said.

“So, when people are like, ‘Oh, man I know they’ll be ready to fight.’ Man, listen, those four police officers cannot keep 105 mutants from fighting each other if we really wanted to. So, it’s a great game and it’s a great feeling, man. There’s no better feeling when you are a Sooner, for sure. I don’t know how the Longhorns feel about it, but we love the experience,” McCoy said.

Gerald McCoy spent four years in college at Oklahoma, where he emerged as one of the best defensive players in the country.

He redshirted his first year before emerging as the 2007 Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year. The next two seasons, McCoy was named as an All-Big 12 first team selection and as a first-team All-American.

McCoy was a five-star prospect out of Oklahoma City (Okla.) Southwest High. Retroactively using On3’s Industry Ranking tool, he is ranked as the No. 10 recruit in the 2006 On3 Industry Ranking. 

Kick for Saturday’s game between OU and Texas is set for noon EST and the game will be nationally televised on ABC.

On3’s Peter Warren also contributed to this article.