WATCH: Texas debuts new LED lighting against Wyoming

Four years ago, the Georgia Bulldogs debuted a new experience at Sanford Stadium with red LED lighting to start the fourth quarter, complementing the previous tradition of fans turning on their cell phone lights while the band plays Krypton.

On Saturday, the Texas Longhorns matched that experience at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium with the debut of burnt orange LED lighting installed during the offseason. With the season opener against the Rice Owls falling during the afternoon, Saturday’s night game against the Wyoming Cowboys presented the first opportunity to use the new lighting.

“I am excited about it. I’m a fan of college football and I think the better environment that we can create, the better atmosphere we can create for our fans, for our players, the better it is for everybody,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said on Thursday. “I think it provides energy to the stadium, I think our play provides energy to the fans, I think our fans provide energy to our team, and so creating that home-field advantage, creating that experience here at DKR, I think is something that I appreciate CDC and Drew Martin and all their work that they’ve been putting together to continue to create the environment that this place can have. I’ve seen it grow from year one to year two and now we’re into year three and we’ve got some new things going. So yeah, I am looking forward to that.”

Fans get to participate in the light show, too:

Download the Texas Longhorns app to be a part of our Horns Lights Show!

Make sure you have the Texas Longhorns app downloaded before the game and be in your seats during the second half for our Horns Lights show! To participate, just open the Texas Longhorns app and hit the Horns Lights icon at the bottom. Click here for links to download the app on Apple or Android devices.

“This capability allows us to blink and flash and create patterns with your phone lights in the stadium,” Martin told Inside Texas. “Instead of just holding up your camera light with the flashlight, you hold it up with the lights activated on your app. We’ll be able to blink, flash, strobe, do all the things with the flashlight in the stadium, and it’s really, really cool. It’ll be an educational process for certain, but it’s really, really exciting to see how that works.”

Martin and his team surprised fans with a drone show to accompany the new LED lighting and while there was some palpable tension in the sellout crowd of 101,777 thanks to the score of 10-10 heading into the fourth quarter, the Longhorns finally found rhythm in the moments after the light show, scoring 21 unanswered points to take control of the game.