Just look at how beautiful this is.
This is my city.
This is the core, where I live, where I work, and where you’ll find me most of the time.

For the uninitiated, the foreground lights are less than 2 miles from me, right now. They are the State Fair of Texas, where as they have for the last 110 years, Texas will face against OU later today.

Much is being made of this being the first time the game is an SEC rivalry…as if THAT is what now gives it some legitimacy.

Oh…SEC fans…you’re soooo CUTE!
You’re adorable!!!

You really need to understand that this matters little to two teams, two states, that have already plays 120 times, 110 of them right here in Dallas. If you fail to grasp that this is among the very top tier rivalries in the history of college football, my friend, sports historical, and Dr. Andrew McGregor is here to help.

Andrew has written an excellent and detail-rich history on Substack that is worth your time today.

In my mind the top two rivalry games are Michigan-Ohio State and us. With all respect to everyone else, there’s no other 120 year game with this kind of history and setting.
Sure the SEC has decent in-state games…but, yeah, we’ve each got one of those too.
(That said, I did have to look up what the “Egg Bowl was…)

This game is bigger and better.
And always has been.
Because it’s the history, the setting and the teams.

So, you’re welcome, SEC.
Today…WE welcome YOU…and you’re welcome.

Andrew traces some of the very early years, including how the teams stayed at rival downtown hotels in the 1920s (The Baker and the Adolphus) and how the fans even the were at each others throats.
Even when I was in college at Austin, we’d go downtown to circle around downtown streets, hurling insults behind police barricades. And every year, somebody would get punched out by somebody.

There’s even a section of the story that talks about this being an early sports broadcast.

And First Methodist, downtown, makes an appearance.
They put in “the largest tv screen available” so that fans could watch an early broadcast there. It was like an OG sports bar.

Size of this “huge” screen in the Men’s Sunday School class?

17×20…inches.

So, yeah, this a big day.
A big setting.
An historic setting.

My team is “supposed” to win today. But I long ago realized you never assume anything about this game. Win or lose, the fact that your team is a part of something this big…it’s just a feeling of great pride, and history ever year.

As I type, 92,000 fans are making their way to the State Fair right now. They’ll mill around the grounds, hurling insults and eating corn dogs.(Stop by Ranchero Fajitas, yall!)
Everybody will be in red and burnt orange.

My neighbor, Matt Wood, who is one of the most passionate defenders of Fair Park I know, has just pointed out that about 100k more folks without actual tickets will be there today…watching on patios, TVs, etc…

The total crowd, in the stadium and the in the fairgrounds, will be more like 200,000 today.
Hands down, the biggest tailgate, college football party in the nation.

And then, they’ll file into the stadium and the fairgrounds will empty out, and become quiet; except for the occasional throaty 46,000-fan yell that can surprise you with it’s power.

After, they’ll pour back out and mill around some more. It’s one big party…pre and post game.
And it hardly matters who’s ranked or who isn’t.
It’s the experience that counts.
Being THERE at the fair.
Watching on TV and remembering all the other games.
Walking around the midway during the game you can hear the roar of the crowd, and it feels like you a part of some important historic event.

Which, of course, you are.

At night these days, I walk to Deep Ellum and back. I can look over and see the neon of the Texas Star and the Tower in the Fair Grounds. All summer long in my hood, we can hear the bass from concerts at Starplex. (that’s its name. Period. Full stop). Whoever plays there, from Snoop Dog to Willie, causes East Dallas neighbors to rush to Next Door and ask “what’s that sound?!”

Before and after the game today red and burnt orange shirts will be all around us…eating in the restaurants we walk to all the time…in Deep Ellum, Lower Greenville, and Lakewood. (And, yes, Garden Cafe, down the block).

Again, all of this fills me with joy. What a blessing to live right in the middle of it all.

It’s all one big beautiful moment in time, connected to history, stretching back to my parents generation and, hopefully out into the future.

This is the heart of college football.
And it happens right in my backyard.

So: Welcome to our hood, everybody.

Welcome, SEC…enjoy!
Welcome, nation…to one of the best events in sports history.

Let us breathe in the moment and take in the scope.

Oh.

And of course….HOOK EM!!!