AUSTIN -- On a table next to Tom Herman's lectern, one of the phones used by media to record his buttoned-up thoughts suddenly lights up, as does the coach.

"Anyone expecting a call from Fraud Risk?" he asks, then picks up the phone and answers it himself.

"This is Coach Herman."

Except it wasn't.

The jocular fellow at Monday's news conference bore little resemblance to the terse, tightly wound coach who usually leads Texas' weekly news conference. Most Mondays he doesn't have much fun. Only last week, before the West Virginia win, he essentially cut his usual 30-minute availability in half. Given the insight of the answers, no one seemed to mind the quick exit.

Considering that this week at the State Fair, the 11th-ranked Longhorns will play sixth-ranked Oklahoma, a 10-point favorite and purveyor of the nation's most prolific offenseaveraging nearly a first down per play, you'd have thought Herman might retreat further into his shell. Maybe even take the fifth.

On the contrary, his jovial tone Monday seemed calculated to make a point to his team, if no one else:

Lighten up. We got this.

If he wasn't exactly Barry Switzer, at least he tried to be accommodating. When a reporter asked what it's like to play at the Cotton Bowl in October, he repeated a favorite from his days as a graduate assistant at Texas.

Team bus rolls up outside the Midway, where an elderly woman greets the Horns with a two-finger salute. Next to her, a child sweetly follows granny's lead.

"The old double bird," Herman said, smiling. "It crosses a lot of different generations."

He paused after relating the story in front of a bank of cameras, realizing that, in the telling, he might have acted it out a little too well.

"I hope I didn't actually put those up," he said. "That'd be a meme in a heartbeat."

He thought a little more and reminded reporters that the seats ringing the tunnel at the Cotton Bowl's south end belong to Oklahoma fans, who come prepared for the day's events.

"They do a good job of looking up your girlfriend's name and your mom's name and all that stuff," he said.

"There is a lot of not-nice things said."

Of course, the trash talk runs both ways. It's not Sunday school. The idea is to get in the head of a blood rival any way possible.

The mind games didn't start this week, either. Last week against West Virginia, for instance, the Longhorns unveiled a trick play with nine minutes left and Texas up by 11 at the Mountaineers' 12. Samuel Cosmi, a 6-7, 300-pound offensive tackle, caught a long lateral from Sam Ehlinger, then used all 10 gears to cover the 12 yards in question.

Now, you might ask, as an Austin columnist did, why not save such an unexpected play for Oklahoma?

Why pile up points in Morgantown while tipping your hand to the Sooners in the process?

"We don't like kicking field goals in the red zone," Herman said. "So we are going to pull out all the stops to score touchdowns down there."

What he didn't say: Now Oklahoma has to spend time in practice this week preparing for another Samuel Cosmi rumble, just in case.

What all parties should expect otherwise is another barn burner. Might not end like last year, when the Longhorns held off a wild comeback led by Kyler Murray. But, as Herman said Monday, it ain't going to be 10-7, either.

And as the points mount, emotions invariably rise with them. A young secondary depleted by injuries needs to understand as much going in. On its best day, the Texas defense won't stop an offense conceived by Lincoln Riley and executed by Jalen Hurts.

Herman's job this week will be to persuade his kids that no matter what happens or how many points the Sooners ring up in a setting unlike any other in college football, they can't lose their heads. In order to accomplish such a mission, it's better to be loose than uptight.

So Herman will remind his players that they're 10-point underdogs. He'll tell them that no one expects them to win, even though their only loss is to a team far better than anyone Oklahoma has faced. Chances are, it might even play.

Never mind that if Texas loses Saturday, any lingering CFP hopes are buried. The committee wouldn't take a two-loss Texas team, no matter what it does in the Big 12 title game.

Naturally, that wasn't the message Monday, subliminal or otherwise. Even on his way out the door, Herman stuck to his theme.

"Somebody better call Fraud back, by the way."

No, he's no Mike Leach. Props for trying, though.

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Tom Herman's tone Monday seemed calculated to make a point to his Longhorns ahead of the Red River Showdown - The Dallas Morning News