The Oklahoma-Texas game is not moving to a Saturday night, contrary to Wednesday's report in the Dallas Morning News.
"I've been getting calls on this all morning," OU associate athletic director for media relations said this morning. "Absolutely not true."
The fact is the time has not been set for next year's game, but it has never been played at night.
The News' story concerned Dart Board members defending the agency's handling of the apparently unexpectd throng of an estimated 40,000 fairgoers who swamped the agency's new light-rail line to the Texas State Fair Grounds, stranding thousands through lengthy delays that caused some to miss the early part of the Longhorns' 16-13 victory.
Here's the pertinent part of the DMN's story:
""I think you and DART did a wonderful job," former board chairman Randall Chrisman of Carrollton told President Gary Thomas after he presented a lengthy report on what went wrong. "The staff did an incredible job."
Chrisman's support for Thomas was widely echoed by other board members. Several expressed doubt that the agency would ever be able to smoothly handle the size of the crowds that showed up Oct. 17, when about 40,000 fairgoers rode light rail.
"I think the staff did an excellent job," Dallas board member Jerry Christian said. "I honestly don't think you can rectify this situation in a way that is going to satisfy everybody."
Even packed full of riders, Dallas Area Rapid Transit trains can only reasonably handle about 5,000 passengers per hour.
Nevertheless, Thomas said the agency hopes to do better next year. He warned board members that the timing of the 2010 Texas-Oklahoma football game will make the crowds an even bigger challenge.
Next year, it's an evening game, with all 95,000 or so football fans letting out just about the time the final crowds from the State Fair will be seeking to leave."
Not to be overly critical--and I'm known on our editing desk as a guy who sometimes can't seem to spell names correctly that I've written many times before--but obviously somebody should have checked this before taking the guy's statement as fact. Probably asking someone in the sports department might have helped.--Mike Jones.
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