Texas Football: OU fan cutouts placed in empty nosebleed seats

Texas football took a funny approach to filling out some of their open seats at DKR in the season opener against UTEP with some OU fan cutouts tonight.

Getting creative with the situation at hand is a great way for the Texas football program to put a much-needed comedic spin on their season opener in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Texas is set to open up their 2020 season on Sep. 12, at home under the lights at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, against the 1-0 UTEP Miners out of Conference-USA.

But this weekend is more than just about the Longhorns getting a win to open up their portion of the 2020 college football season. They need to show that a home game can be successfully put on at DKR in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most games we’ve seen so far that transpired in the first two weeks of the college football season were successfully pulled off in front of some level of limited capacity of fans.

Texas is allowing around a 25 percent capacity for their home games, that’s planned at least for early in the 2020 season. That would technically mean that the Longhorns could play in front of a capacity of around 25,000 fans for each home game at DKR this fall.

But we’ll see how the protocol changes as the season moves along.

It will be interesting to see how the team reacts to the limited crowd at DKR in the season opener against UTEP tonight. This will be a time like no other, and it was weird to see other programs like the Florida State Seminoles, Miami Hurricanes, Oklahoma Sooners, and Notre Dame Fighting Irish, among others in the season so far, play in front of very limited crowds and with a micro-version of their usual gameday traditions.

The same will be said for the Longhorns too.

But it appears that the Longhorns athletic staff at DKR took a comedic approach with how to fill out some of the empty seats at DKR for the season opener. Texas put some Oklahoma fan cutouts that were in the nosebleed seats where no one will be sitting tonight.

This is a fun way to push on the Red River Rivalry game that will still transpire between Texas and Oklahoma in October at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas at the Texas State Fairgrounds. Oklahoma might be able to counter with something funny in Norman later on this season.

Head coach Tom Herman must have his team ready to go tonight. But this is a great way for Herman and the Longhorns to lighten the mood in a much-awaited season opener.

Texas gets UTEP in their season opener at home this weekend. Then they’ll get to take on the Texas Tech Red Raiders on the road in Lubbock on Sep. 26 in their Big 12 opener.