Gov. George Nigh peered out the window of his airplane following a barbecue his Texas counterpart had thrown on the south side of Lake Texoma in the early 1980s.

The barbecue was a pay off on the traditional wager the two governors made on the OU-Texas football game. Nigh recalls the company was delightful and the food was just as good. But as he prepared for the flight home Nigh was struck by a bit of envy.

“I look over and there's the governor of Texas' plane,” Nigh recalled. “I'm in a little four-seat puddle jumper and his plane looked big enough to be a small airliner. I couldn't help but laugh. But that's how it is. Everything is bigger there. That's Texas.”

Each year in October, Oklahoma's sometimes rocky, and often weird, rivalry with its southern neighbor takes the form of a gridiron passion play, performed on 100 yards of sacred Bermuda grass in the heart of Dallas.