DALLAS -- Some call it a rite of passage.

A tradition.

A challenge.

But whatever you call it, OU/Texas weekend for the Pride of Oklahoma marching band is an experience.

The band left Norman at 7 a.m. Friday -- an ungodly hour for college students. They performed at four locations Friday and wake up calls set for 5:15 a.m. today.

But band members said the exhausting weekend is worth it.

"It's really busy," senior Janet Heinzelmann said of her fourth OU-Texas weekend in the Pride. "We get up super early and it's basically go, go, go ... but it's a ton of fun. It's great."

Seven buses sat outside the Holiday Inn Select in Dallas Friday evening. The band paused for a formal banquet at the hotel before performing at halftime of a high school football game in Grapevine, Texas. After that, the band split into two groups to perform at two alumni gatherings in the Dallas area.

The game against the University of Texas is the first away game of the season that the whole band of about 300 students gets to attend. It's a rite of passage for the first year Pride students, said William Wakefield, director of OU Bands.

"It's like the band come of age" at OU-Texas, he said, as the band members test their limits and learn their strengths over the weekend.

The weekend helps the whole band bond, said freshman Lena Riha, who came to Dallas with the band for the first time this weekend as a member of the color guard.

"The color guard, the older girls kind of take the younger girls under their wings," she said. The older girls adopted the younger ones to send them secret gifts, she said.

The subgroups of the Pride -- color guard, instrument sections -- have different traditions for the weekend. Sophomore Morgan Smith, also a first-year member of the color guard, said she's had fun learning more about the Pride this weekend.

"You have to get initiated, so you have to dress up in funny costumes and do certain things," she said.

Not every section has traditions, though. The trumpet section doesn't, said Drew Harnish, fifth year senior who plays the trumpet. He said the OU-Texas weekend is especially fun for freshmen, but he loves it too. After he's graduated, he said, he'll miss it. Especially "free tickets to the game."