Governor's Cup (Texas)

Governor's Cup (Texas)

Preseason game between the Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on August 24, 2019
Dallas Cowboys Houston Texans Houston Oilers
Location	Dallas, Houston
First meeting	December 4, 1960 Texans 24, Oilers 0
Latest meeting	December 11, 2022 Cowboys 27, Texans 23
Next meeting	2024
Statistics
All-time series	Total: Cowboys lead Oilers 18–13 Cowboys and Texans tied 9–9 Regular season: Cowboys lead Oilers 5–3 Cowboys lead Texans 4–2 Preseason: Cowboys lead Oilers 13–10 Texans lead Cowboys 7–5
Largest victory	Regular season: Cowboys (over Oilers): 52–10, December 20, 1970 Preseason: Oilers (over Cowboys): 54–10, August 27, 1988
Current win streak	Cowboys: 1 win (2022)

300km
200miles

Texans

Cowboys

  

Locations of the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans

The Texas Governor's Cup (also known as the Cowboys–Texans rivalry, Battle of Texas, formerly the Cowboys–Oilers rivalry) is the trophy awarded to the winner of the football game between the two National Football League (NFL) teams in Texas, currently the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Texans. Prior to the Texans' inaugural season in 2002 the Cowboys' opponent was the Houston Oilers (now Tennessee Titans). In 1991, after 13 straight games at the Cowboys' Texas Stadium, the Cowboys and Oilers went to a home-and-away format for the preseason and this format more or less continues to this day for the games between the Cowboys and Texans.^[1][2]

Since the first meeting between the Cowboys and Texans in 2002, the two teams have met in the regular season every four years, when all four NFC East teams play all four AFC South teams and every eight years at each team's home stadium, plus in 2024 when both teams won their divisions,^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]} and meet relatively often (by NFL standards) in the preseason; from 2002 until 2008 and again from 2013 to 2021 (except 2017 and 2020, which were canceled), the Cowboys and Texans have been scheduled to play each other in the preseason whenever they are not scheduled to meet in the regular season. In 2010, the teams played both a pre-season and regular season game while in 2009, 2011, and 2012 they did not meet at all. The 2017 preseason game, scheduled to be played in Houston, was canceled due to Hurricane Harvey.^[12] In 2018, the teams played both a pre-season and regular season game once again, marking the first time that this instance of two games in one year had happened since 2010.

The two cities of

In 1960, the NFL established the Dallas Cowboys, mainly as an effort to cut off the American Football League (AFL)'s Dallas Texans: the cutoff effort was only a partial success, as the Texans relocated to become the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963, but the AFL itself would thrive and eventually merge into the NFL in 1970.

The AFL would be the first league to place a professional team in Houston, and though the Houston Oilers and the Texans were in opposite divisions, they quickly became rivals: this culminated in the double-overtime 1962 American Football League Championship Game that the Texans won to prevent an Oilers threepeat in the Texans' last game under that identity.

In 1965, the AFL's Houston Oilers and NFL's Dallas Cowboys both drafted Oklahoma tackle Ralph Neely. The Oilers sued the Cowboys over Neely's services. In the settlement of the case, the Oilers received three Cowboys draft picks in addition to a cash settlement. The Cowboys also agreed to play five preseason games, three in Houston, against the Oilers. Thus began the Governor's Cup series, a Texas tradition created by franchise free agency.^[14]

In 1992 the Cowboys and Oilers met twice in the preseason. The first game took place in Tokyo as part of the NFL's American Bowl series, and the second meeting in Dallas for the Governor's Cup.

The 1994 Governor's Cup was not actually played in Texas but in Mexico City at Estadio Azteca as part of the American Bowl series. As a result of Estadio Azteca's unusually large seating capacity, a league record 112,246 fans watched the Oilers shut out the Cowboys, 6–0 on August 13, 1994.^[15]

The Governor's Cup went into recess after the Oilers relocated to Nashville, Tennessee at the end of the 1996 season (being rebranded as the Tennessee Titans): this left the Cowboys as the only NFL team in Texas until the Texans entered the NFL as an expansion team in 2002.

The only other professional football league to feature teams from Dallas and Houston at the same time is the

Up to the 1996 season, the Dallas Cowboys had won 18 of 31 Governor's Cup meetings leaving the Houston Oilers with 13 Governor's Cup wins.^[16]

Governor's Cup results since 2002

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The Texans joined the NFL as an expansion team for the 2002 season. Since then, the series is tied overall at 9–9 as of the 2022 season. The Texans lead the pre-season series at 7–5 and the Dallas Cowboys lead the regular season series 4–2.

Game summaries

See also

• MLB rivalry between Houston Astros and Texas Rangers
  )
• Mavericks-Rockets rivalry
  (NBA)
• Houston Dynamo and FC Dallas
  )

References