Friday Night Lights. Corny Dogs. Big Tex. Jerry World. If football is the national sporting religion in America, Dallas was Mecca during the second weekend of October. 

As Tom Landry said, “football is to Texas what religion is to a priest.” 

No high school football game in the country was bigger than Duncanville at DeSoto – each two-time reigning state champions in Texas’ largest classifications. No collegiate contest in America meant more than the first SEC-colored Red River Rivalry in the Cotton Bowl at the State Fair. No NFL matchup garnered as many viewers as the Detroit Lions at the Dallas Cowboys in the Lone Star State version of the Taj Mahal. 

All taking place over 48 hours in a 30-mile radius. Everything is bigger in Texas - especially the football. 

Duncanville and DeSoto are separated by 6.5 miles and connected by great football and passionate, prideful communities. The Duncanville Panthers won the 2022 and 2023 Class 6A Division I championships and have been in five of the last six state title games. The DeSoto Eagles won Division II in 2022 and 2023 and have three state championships since 2016. 

Over 50 combined players from the two schools are currently on FBS rosters, including Ja’Quinden Jackson and Shemar Turner. Ten alums are active in the NFL, including Von Miller and Byron Murphy. Over 30 alums have made it to the NFL. Recruiting experts say that at least 27 players on the field Friday night, as the Panthers pounced on the Eagles, will play FBS football.  

Cars parked on the grass on the east and west side of South Westmoreland Rd., with fans opting to walk up to a mile rather than battle for the dwindling spaces remaining in overmatched parking lots. Not a single car was in the Whataburger drive-thru on Belt Line. No one sat at the counter at the Waffle House next door, either. 

Fans from both teams were stuck in lines that wrapped around the parking lot of Eagle Stadium. Hundreds of fans without tickets to the sold-out spectacle found spots outside the chain-link fences on the home and away side to watch from outside the stadium. They sat on parked vehicles outside the endzone on the west side of Eagle Stadium. 

Thousands more over the years will say they were there to watch Dakorien Moore catch five balls for 180 yards and four touchdowns…in the first half. How many games across the country feature a five-star Alabama commit throwing to a five-star Oregon pledge on one side and a future Virginia Tech signal-caller handing it to a four-star running back heading to Texas A&M on the other? 

The elevator to the press box was broken. The visiting band didn’t arrive until kickoff. The concession stand sold delicacies such as stuffed turkey legs and hot Cheetos and cheese. Halftime took over 30 minutes. More than 10 colleges were on hand to scout, including Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor. SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee showed up in the second half via helicopter. 

Texas high school football, baby. You can’t beat it with a stick. 

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“Football and this corny dog,” a dad decked out in burnt orange smiled and said when his young son asked why we were all waiting in such a long line for a Fletcher’s Corny Dog near the main entrance at the Cotton Bowl. “That’s why we’re here today.” 

It is rare for the college football game to be the secondary event in the south but that is the exact scenario every second Saturday in October when hundreds of thousands of Texas and Oklahoma fans converge on the State Fair for a carnival featuring a football game. 

Fried butter. Fried Oreos. Fried eggrolls. Fried students more concerned with beer filled wax cups than sunscreen. Rides called “The Kraken” and “Ring of Fire,” alongside the classic “Texas Star” Ferris wheel reaching 212 feet tall. The “Texas Subway” can carry you over the fair to the other side of the grounds in a Gazebo of sorts. Fans screaming “Boomer Sooner!” and “Texas Fight” provide the soundtrack. 

The Oklahoma territory was opened for settlement through Land Runs beginning in 1889 with each race to stake claim to new lands beginning with a pistol shot as thousands gathered in the Twin Territories that later became the state. Those settlers who jumped the gun and arrived prior to Land Rush of 1889 to claim Unassigned Lands illegally were called “Sooners.” 

The Texas longhorn descended from cattle brought by Spanish explorers and settlers to the area in the late 1500s and thrived in the harsh climate and terrain of the Lone Star State. The longhorns’ higher tolerance for heat and drought compared to most other European breeds made them a favorite on the cattle drives that defined the American Southwest. Historians say that about 5 million cattle were driven to northern markets from Texas by cowboys and vaqueros from about 1865 to the mid-1890s. 

Both mascots were well represented at the State Fair. Fans arrived early for the 2:30 p.m. kickoff, hardened by years of 11 a.m. kicks. The State Fair was overflowing with fans by noon and Texas students began to populate their section of the Cotton Bowl when gates opened two hours before kickoff. The throngs of spectators also needed to channel their inner longhorn because there was plenty of heat. Luckily, there was no worry of a drought as the fairgrounds were stocked with refreshments. 

The University of Texas is 196 miles from the Cotton Bowl. The University of Oklahoma is 191 miles away. Bevo, Texas’s beloved steer, still makes the trip north, while the RuffNeks, who drive the Oklahoma Sooner Schooner, head south. Both schools were founded in the 1800s and the two met for the 120th time in 2024. They’ve played every year for the past 95 years, since October 1929. The first meeting was in 1900, seven years before the Twin Territories became the 46th state. The Cotton Bowl became host in 1932. 

Steve Sarkisian arrived at the postgame press conference in the bowels of the Cotton Bowl with a smile and a corny dog to serve as his victory cigar. “I finally got a corn dog, y’all,” he said with the same glee of that dad waiting in line with his son six hours earlier. “It’s amazing, actually.” Hopefully next year someone gets him some mustard, too. 

Texas thumped Oklahoma for the second time in two seasons, and the Horns left Dallas as the top-ranked team in the country and a date with College Gameday and Georgia next week. Austin always felt like the symbolic doorway to the American Southwest. It is now the capital of the Southeastern Conference. 

“It’s the greatest thing ever,” Texas AD Chris Del Conte told Paul Finebaum in the spring, causing an uproar by grey-haired SEC traditionalists. Or bald ones, in the case of Finebaum. “You may talk about the Cocktail Party (Florida vs. Georgia), the Iron Bowl (Alabama vs. Auburn). There’s nothing like this game.” 

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The state of Texas is known for many things – the Alamo, barbecue, oil, bluebonnets. But no symbol represents the spirit and culture of the Lone Star State like a cowboy. A trip to AT&T Stadium on Sunday for a home game against the Lions put the star and the Cowboys on the national stage, just like every Sunday in the fall.  

The cowboy and longhorn are intertwined into the fabric of Texas. Both came here in the 1500s when the Spanish established ranches in the Americas and imported horses from Spain. The Spanish term "vaca” means cow, making a vaquero the original cowboy. As Texas became its own state and cattle drives dominated commerce and growth inside the state, the Texas cowboy became a romantic figure in Americana the way a Samurai is glorified in Japanese culture.  

The Dallas Cowboys are similarly romanticized and glorified. A relic from the past with the heydays more memory than current affair. Sportico lists the franchise as the most valuable in sports with a total value of $10.32 billion. The Golden State Warriors are second at $8.28 billion and the New York Yankees are third at $7.93 billion. The second-most valuable NFL franchise is the Los Angeles Rans at $7.79 billion. The most valuable sporting franchise outside of America is Manchester United, with a total value of $6.2 billion. 

All this without recent success. The Warriors have Steph Curry and won four NBA championships from 2015-2022. The Yankees have generational slugger Aaron Judge and won an MLB championship as recently as 2009. The Rams won the Super Bowl in 2022. Even a struggling Manchester United squad has multiple league titles and European championships since the turn of the century. 

How ‘bout those Cowboys? Nada. All hat, no cattle. The worst type of Texan. Dallas has won five Super Bowls and eight conference championships in its storied history, but the last time the franchise achieved either feat was in 1995. The Cowboys have made the playoffs 13 times since then. They only have five playoff wins in those 13 trips. 

Detroit beat the Cowboys, 47-9, to hand Dallas the biggest loss of the three marquee games. They're no Duncanville, that's for sure. Jones should call Reginald Samples. 

Dan Campbell is all cattle. Well, technically he’s an Aggie. The Clifton native played at Glen Rose High School before starring as a tight end for Texas A&M and enjoying a 10-year NFL career that included time as a Cowboy and a Lion. He became the head coach for Detroit in 2021 – one year after Mike McCarthy took over the Cowboys. McCarthy is 1-3 in the playoffs in four full seasons at the helm in Big D. Campbell is 2-1 in the postseason as the head man in the Motor City. 

Campbell wasn’t the only former Texas high school football player in AT&T Stadium on Sunday afternoon. The Cowboys have seven on the roster. The Lions have two, including Duncanville product Ennis Rakestraw. Friday Night Lights always shine on NFL Sundays. The 211 native Texans in the NFL to start the 2024 season led the league and represents about 1 in every 12 players on rosters. Texas also has the most former and current NFL players with 2,644 and the most Hall of Famers with 36. 

To paraphrase the great Ricky Williams, if you want to surf, move to Hawaii. If you like to shop, move to New York. If you like acting and Hollywood, move to California. But if you like football, move to Texas. Or at least visit on the second weekend in October.