Texas vs. Oklahoma point spread: Picking Longhorns vs. Sooners

When you turn on ESPN College GameDay on Saturday morning, they will be live from the State Fair of Texas. The Red River Shootout, live from Dallas, TX, will take place for an undefeated matchup between Texas and Oklahoma. For the second consecutive season, the Longhorns are considered favorites and by nearly a touchdown.

On3’s Andy Staples was joined by Geoff Schwartz to give his pick for the game. Schwartz was first up, where he was a little bit all over the place. First, he would take Oklahoma +6.5 if he were betting on the game — which he was not. And then Schwartz nearly claimed Texas would be who he would place money on to win the national title but held back.

But when looking at it deeper, Schwartz looked at Oklahoma’s inability to create explosive plays. Not just in the run game but their defensive front has not been great either. Blitzes are surely going to be thrown at Quinn Ewers but it’s going to be because of their lack of pressure.

“Oklahoma has not been terribly great at explosive rushing plays,” Schwartz said. “If you get into a game against Texas where you can’t run the ball, you become one-dimensional, that’s a problem. Their defense also hasn’t hit anybody, either.

“They don’t really generate a lot of pressure with the front four. So, there’s a couple of things I think Texas has better than Oklahoma in this game.”

Staples will be taking Texas to cover in the game, talking about the line of scrimmage. Facing off against Alabama gives Staples confidence the Longhorns will be able to get it done against Oklahoma. Kyle Flood and Bo Daivs have done a great job of reworking the offensive and defensive line, respectfully.

“I’m going to take Texas to cover in this game,” Staples said. “It feels like they’re better on both lines of scrimmage and they have actually been tested on both lines of scrimmage. They played Alabama, we saw them against fellow five-star recruits, future NFL-type players. And they handled that very well.”

If there is anything we have learned from recent Red River Shootouts (save last year’s game), it’s that a one-possession game is likely. No matter the circumstances, teams are rarely able to pull away and earn a comfortable win.

Add in both teams having a 5-0 record and Saturday’s fight for the Golden Hat has the chance to be quite a special one.