Ted Cruz made a Cotton Bowl bet with JD Vance—and Texas fans are pissed

As the Texas Longhorns and Ohio State Buckeyes prepare to go head-to-head in Friday’s Cotton Bowl in Arlington, Texas, some sports fans have a pointed message to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: Stay far away. 

Their messages come after the senator and Vice President-elect JD Vance, an Ohio native and Buckeyes supporter, agreed to a friendly wager on social media. Under the rules of the bet, which Cruz initiated, the Republican affiliated with the losing school (Ohio State University for Vance and the University of Texas at Austin for Cruz) must deliver food and beer from their home state to the winner while wearing the victorious team’s jersey.

Cruz posted the terms of the bet to X on Tuesday, and Vance quickly agreed to participate.

“Alright which Texas ice cream should I have Ted bring with the Buckeyes win?” Vance responded in a matter of minutes, adding in a follow-up post, “To be clear, @tedcruz, you’re on!”

Cruz responded: “The only possible answer is Blue Bell ice cream. Plus Texas BBQ & Shiner Bock beer. But, it won’t matter because the Horns are gonna win! Texas by 5.

For sports fans, this game is of the utmost importance as the winner will go on to face the winner of the Orange Bowl for the college football national championship. And there is, of course, an argument that Ohio State and UT-Austin alumni should care about the game, too. There’s just one problem: Cruz, who once compared UT-Austin’s football team to teenage girls because of a poor performance, is the son of a Longhorn, but otherwise, he has no firm ties to the school. 

Perhaps most importantly, though, he is cursed.

Texas fans quickly drew attention to this after news of the wager went viral. Upon hearing about the bet, many fans on social media tried to remind the recently reelected senator of the so-called “Cruz Curse,” a belief among some sports fans that Cruz’s presence at games causes Texas-based teams to lose.

“JD, this man has zero authority to wager on behalf of the Texas Longhorns and should be blocked and reported,” one Austin-based parody account posted to X.

“STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THE COTTON BOWL,” another Austin-based account warned Cruz. 

Before these attacks on Cruz, a recent Change.org petition sought to ban Cruz from all UT-Austin sporting events, claiming the transphobic and generally loathsome senator is “just pla[i]n bad luck” and brings “downright sinister energy” to games he attends.

Even though the online campaign amassed only about 2,200 signatures, the signees’ point is well taken. Cruz has attended several crucial games where Texas teams have fallen short of expectations. 

In October, the Houston Astros lost to the Detroit Tigers while Cruz was in attendance. Then there’s the Longhorn college football playoff game in which they went up against the Washington Huskies. Again, Texas lost—and, to no surprise, Cruz was there. And the senator was also blamed for jinxing the Houston Rockets during the 2018 NBA playoffs. 

Rather than play it cool and shrug it off, Cruz decried “dishonest press hacks blaming me for the Longhorn’s heartbreaking loss” last January, before listing multiple games he’d attended where, actually, Texas teams didn’t lose, thank you very much.

It is somewhat laughable that amid turmoil in Washington, D.C., Cruz and Vance are focusing on sports. Don’t they have more important things to address? Or have Republicans already forgotten that its members seem to have no clue how to pass President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda? 

Ironically, for all his time posting online, Cruz is somewhat in the middle of the D.C. infighting. While Trump and, by default, Vance have encouraged congressional Republicans to pass one sweeping bill containing basically Trump’s whole agenda—from stringent immigration measures to tax reform and energy policy—Cruz has said that this likely won’t happen and has advocated for passing two or more smaller bills.

But such matters appear to end up on the back burner during football season. Priorities! For his part, Vance especially seems to love using football as an excuse to mingle with some of the worst people on the planet.

The stakes are especially high because the Longhorns are currently a six-point underdog for Friday’s game. So, please, Cruz, from one Texan to another, stay far, far away from the stadium and don’t ruin our chances of winning yet again.