Saturday will mark the 121st time Texas and Oklahoma have met in football and the 93rd straight year they’ve played in Fair Park, but in one respect it will be a fresh start.
It will be the first time Longhorns and Sooners fans get to experience the Cotton Bowl’s $140 million renovation — including wider concourses, seven new concession areas and 192 additional toilets.
Though the vast majority of upgrades are to the stadium’s west side, Texas athletics director Chris Del Conte and Oklahoma counterpart Joe Castiglione are hopeful the overall result will be a much-improved fan experience.
“I applaud the city of Dallas and I applaud the Cotton Bowl for investing in this Phase I,” said Del Conte, noting that Phase II’s similar upgrades to the east side will begin as soon as 2030.
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“We’re asking people to spend their discretionary income with us. The venue is critical. Ingress. Egress. Restrooms. Concessions. That whole enterprise plays a huge role in the game.”
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Both ADs told The Dallas Morning News that they are especially hopeful that the improvements result in at least one big logistical upgrade: Getting fans into and out of the 92,000-seat stadium in less time and with less stress.
It will help that the west side’s ground concourse has been doubled in width. And that the addition of 14 escalators on the west side’s perimeter will enable fans to get to the mid- and upper-deck levels without having to enter the main concourse.
To further alleviate the logjam of fans entering the west side’s two main gates, the security metal detectors will be moved further from the stadium’s perimeter. That way the screening should be more efficient before fans get their tickets scanned.
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To make room for the metal detectors and fencing, the traditional Fletcher’s Corny Dog stand near the Cotton Bowl’s main entrance has been relocated to another part of the fairground.
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Last year, both universities and Cotton Bowl Stadium officials fielded numerous complaints from fans who weren’t able to get to their seats in a timely fashion, in some cases well after kickoff.
“In spite of how some people might think, we do listen to what the fans say,” Castiglione said. “And both of us are walking around, taking notes, looking at issues, and if we can get to a problem immediately, we do that.
“We were very well aware of the ingress-egress issues last year.”
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One factor last year, Castiglione said, is that due to construction fewer gates were accessible than previous years.
Another factor, Del Conte said, was an unanticipated consequence of moving the kickoff from its traditional 11 a.m. time slot to 2:30 p.m.
Del Conte said he loves that this year’s game also has a 2:30 kickoff, but this time stadium officials will be more prepared.
“When the game starts at 11, the (State) Fair goers aren’t fired up yet,” he said. “So when you’re there at 9 and starting to enter the stadium, you don’t have the busy Fair patrons.
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“At 2:30 it’s full-blown Fair, with patrons going to the Fair as well as the game. So moving the fences back and creating better ingress-egress into the stadium is critical for that. I think we learned last year that the intensity of getting in and out of the game was magnified by the time change.”
Del Conte said he recalled walking around the stadium two days before last year’s game, thinking the plan in place was as solid as could be expected.
“You know,” he said, “as they always say, ‘If you want to make God laugh, make a plan.’ ”
When they spoke to The News last week in separate phone interviews, neither athletic director had seen the $140 million renovation’s final product. Both, however, had gone on hard hat tours in recent months and could easily visualize the improvements.
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In December of 2023, Texas and Oklahoma extended their agreement to play the Red River Rivalry in the Cotton Bowl through 2036.
The key drivers of that agreement was Dallas’ and the State Fair’s contractual obligation to complete Phase I of the stadium renovation before the 2026 game and begin Phase II by 2030.
Remarkably, Phase I construction was completed in 18 months. None of the 92,000 souls on Saturday will be more eager to see the results than Castiglione, who in July announced this is his last year as fulltime AD.
“I’m going to have unbelievable gratitude for everybody who came together and made this happen in this short of time,” he said. “We just designed it two years ago. That’s an amazingly short amount of time.”
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Both Del Conte and Castiglione described the Red River Rivalry and State Fair setting as a shared treasure that must be protected and cherished.
“Believe me, both schools continue to get pressure, like ‘Why wouldn’t you play it in your own stadium?’ ” Castiglione said.
“Those kinds of questions will continue periodically. But we all realize that this tradition of over 100 years is something that never could be recreated anywhere else.”
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