Whenever I ask my friend and fellow graduate of UT what time it is, she tells me the actual time and then immediately follows it up with "... and OU still sucks."

For the first couple months of living in Austin, I couldn't figure out where this friendly rivalry with our clearly less-privileged neighbor state to the north came from. And then I went to a UT football game for the first time, and I totally got it.

Here were thousands of able-minded adults dressed up in burnt orange cowboy-themed costumes screaming their faces off in defiance of the other team that had the sheer audacity to show up to the game they were playing. I found myself shifting between a feeling of comfortable groupthink and a shocked horror at how far some of my fellow Longhorns were taking their drunken revelry. (Most of the horror came from the 300-lb. shirtless man sweating orange paint all over us.)

Tonight, another long standing tradition of Texas football pride roars its celebratory and sometimes scary head into the Austin night. The Torchlight Parade and Rally is the annual kickoff to the much-hyped Red River Rivaly game against the University of Oklahoma (mysteriously called OU) played in Dallas. As one diehard UT fan describes it in the 2011 Texas Longhorn Preview Guide, "The second Saturday in October is the closest we'll come to purgatory on earth and the heaven or hell that awaits us on the other side." The game is that important to both sides.

So in grand bigger-is-better tradition, the sendoff party has to be a huge deal as well. And don't worry. The Texas Exes Student Chapter is planning a huge party for y'all tonight.

After a hundreds-strong parade starting at Kinsolving Residence Hall and ending up at the Main Building, a "Texas sized" pep rally happens in the shadow of the UT Tower. (If you get lost, just look up.) The Texas Cheerleaders will be doing their thing, the Longhorn Band will be playing all the hits, "Smokey" the Cannon and the beloved Bevo will be offering their symbolic support, and a huge Texas flag will be draped over ol' Main.

If you've never seen the procession, it is really quite magnificent seeing the band and the crowds moving up Guadalupe in a tight, ecstatic pack. A little scary, sure, in that burn-the-witch kind of way. But, after living in Phoenix, AZ, for four years, a city where no one goes outside or knows their neighbors, it's great living in a town where people care enough about anything enough to gather together in color-coordinated outfits and walk somewhere to listen to music.

For those who don't share this love of the great Texas game, you'll probably want to avoid The Drag this evening. But for everyone else, tonight's one of the best nights of the year to throw your hand-horns in the air, sing along with "The Eyes of Texas," and succumb to that inescapable rush of UT pride.

What time does the rally start? Oh, at 8 p.m... and OU still sucks.