Let me start by saying this: “Horns down” should NOT be a penalty.
But everyone should really stop doing it.
I get it. It’s fun to beat Texas. We’re a big brand. We’re often pretty full of ourselves. And we have the best hand signal in sports hands down (pardon the pun.) So when you get that big win over Texas, you’ve earned it. Throw the “horns down” sign and then go celebrate with your friends.
But that’s where it should end.
If you’re having high school kids who have never played Texas do “horns down” in a recruiting visit… That’s really not doing your own school any favors. You’ve made Texas part of your story, and it makes you look weak in comparison. Your identity is no longer pro-Oklahoma… it’s anti-Texas.
And if that’s your identity, then what happens when you don’t play the Longhorns? Well, just watch any Texas A&M or Oklahoma game. The camera pans across the crowd and you get Sooner fans doing big “horns down” signs at the camera while they play West Virginia. A&M corps members furiously flashing “horns down” as they lose to Mississippi State.
I was at a Dallas Stars hockey game in January and the jumbotron caught a group of guys in their green Stars jerseys enjoying the game. When they saw the camera was on them they all instinctively did “horns down.”
You shouldn’t get your worth from Texas. That is the TRUE definition of “rent-free.”
And you buy Texas gear to turn upside down? Thank you for supporting our athletic department. And… wow.
The common talk track is that Texas is so sensitive about this that they want “horns down” to be a penalty during games. Most Texas fans don’t feel this way. Taunting should be called. If a Texas player “holsters the guns” in the face of a Tech player, that should be a penalty (more on that in a minute). If an opponent walks up to a TCU player and does a choke sign, that should be a penalty. And if a defender stands over a Texas player and does “horns down,” yeah, that’s taunting, too.
A little history: the common talk track is that “Texas whined about it until it became a penalty.” Not true. At all. A Texas player was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct in 2012 for “holstering the guns” against Tech. On Monday Mack Brown said he was told the penalty was called because it’s disrespectful. “The Horns Down are disrespectful for players on the field. If Horns Down are OK, we ought to have Guns Down be OK.”
Mack was right. Call all the taunting or none of the taunting. More than that, he was calling for none of it to be a penalty. That’s the opposite of whining to make it a penalty.
But you hear all kinds of logic gymnastics come into play.
“If horns down is a penalty, then horns up should be a penalty.” What a horrible take. Horns up is a celebration of your own school. “Horns down” is directed at putting down another school. It’s not the same. It’s like a thumbs up vs flipping the bird. One is positive. One is negative.
Again, get in the end zone. Run over to your own bench or your own fans and do a “horns down” if that’s how you feel you need to express yourself in the moment. Fine. We’re all grown-ups. No flags on the play.
We don’t even mind that. We secretly like it. We’d do it if we were you.
In the wise words of the Minister of Culture himself, Matthew McConaughey, “Appreciate them putting the horns down. It’s a compliment to us. It means they hate us more than they love themselves.”
All right, all right, all right.
So maybe give it a rest when you’re playing Arkansas? Maybe don’t co-op “horns down” to be the rallying cry of your entire fan base. It’s sad. For you. And it gives us arrogant Longhorn fans all the ammunition we need to remind you that you’re always thinking about us.
But you’re not… right?
