OU-Texas has big payoff

Hopes for Heisman, BCS title game may ride on the outcome.

All across the country this week, eyes will be fixed on the Cotton Bowl. National scribes from USA Today, The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, SI.com, ESPN.com, Yahoo.com, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times, among others, will offer their vision of the Red River revelry.

But this isn't just Oklahoma-Texas, with its Ferris wheels and corny dogs and Boomer Sooner-Hook 'em 'Horns split at the 50-yard line.

It's the No. 1 Sooners versus the No. 5 Longhorns, arguably college football's best rivalry, but now so much more.

"It escalated, I think, when they put us in the same conference, the same division," OU coach Bob Stoops said. "Now the stakes are even higher than just bragging rights."

This year, Saturday's game is the first step of an all-out sprint to the Big 12 Conference South Division's finish line. It's a heavyweight fight between two brawlers, a Wild West duel in the street between two dead-eye gunslingers, an epic shoving match to determine king of the mountain.

"It's even bigger when both teams are really, really good like they are this year," Texas coach Mack Brown said. "It's good for college football, and it's good for the Big 12."

When the 5-0 Sooners and 5-0 Longhorns kick off at 11 a.m., it will be the latest and possibly the most revealing leg of a 15-week journey to determine college football's best two teams.

"It's way too early to call this the Super Bowl," said Pete Fiutak, lead writer at CollegeFootballNews.com. "However, it's a big step forward for the national title chase considering the Big 12 champion would be 99.9 percent certain to get into the BCS championship game if it's unbeaten."

With all apologies to the Big Red showdown of 1971, it is this week's game of the century.

Then again, that may be overstating it, considering that the last game of the century — USC-Ohio State on Sept. 13 — turned into a Trojan rout, and two weeks later, USC itself was upset. Thus OU's ascension to the top of the polls.

"Screw perspective and cool detachment," Sports Illustrated's Austin Murphy said. "All we can do is attach to each game the significance it deserves that particular weekend. This sucker is huge right now."

It also is a likely surge, albeit an early one, in the Heisman Trophy chase. Quarterbacks Colt McCoy of Texas and Sam Bradford of Oklahoma are playing well enough now to be considered frontrunners for the award.

"Big dramatic plays in nationally televised epics are key ingredients in a successful Heisman campaign," Murphy says. "Some fat stats and a victory could help either guy elbow (Missouri quarterback) Chase Daniel out of the catbird seat."

"Assuming the QB plays well, I think the winner becomes co-leader with Chase Daniel," says Pete Thamel, national college football writer for the New York Times. "McCoy has somehow flown under the radar, and Bradford is in prime position for a breakout-type game."

Don't make reservations for New York just yet, though.

"A middle-of-October Heisman Trophy race won't mean a whole lot if you don't go out in this football game and perform and get a win," warns OU quarterbacks coach Josh Heupel.

Oklahoma is a seven-point favorite. The Sooners were preseason picks to repeat as Big 12 South champs and win the conference — and that means beating Texas. Then No. 16 Kansas. Then No. 7 Texas Tech. Then No. 17 Oklahoma State. And probably No. 3 Missouri. And watch out for all those epic upset possibilities in between.

"There are too many other top 15 teams in the Big 12 to anoint a conference title winner," says ESPN.com's Bruce Feldman, "much less (a) BCS title game team after the end of this one."

Stoops and Brown agree.

"One of the worst things you can have is a team that's rated high without deserving it," Brown said.

"And then everybody says, 'What an upset. Another top 10 team got beat.' I don't think there are top 10 teams until now or the next week or the next week. Because you have to earn that right instead of being given it."

Said Stoops, "You still have to win it regardless of what your ranking is."