DALLAS — Oklahoma’s going to win. Easily. Texas is a mess.

It’s true, the Sooners get better throughout the season, just as it’s true they’re more dangerous after a loss, just as it’s true every assumption ever made about this team back when it was 4-0 is baloney if Texas’ two-year winning streak becomes three. And OU’s going have to lay back-to-back eggs for the Sooner Nation, or even an objective observer, to get their head around that.

So, it’s OU’s game.

Maybe with a bullet.

Maybe with defense.

Maybe with slingin’ Sam throwing the ball.

Maybe with Allen Patrick running for two bills.

Indeed, Saturday’s fun ought to be a matter of identifying the hero, because doesn’t somebody always emerge?

From Earl Campbell to Marcus Dupree to that guy who stuffed James Allen at the goal line, to the Saturday Ricky Williams and DeMond Parker wouldn’t let two lousy football teams interrupt an afternoon of can-you-top-this that meant nothing to the nation but everything to everybody in the seats.

Stars come out

The first snap Jason White ever took at the Cotton Bowl, he audibled into an option, the Sooners scored six and a star was born. Who knew it would take a couple blown knees for that star to end up in Heisman Park?

Nobody, yet White showed everybody something that day. As did Quentin Griffin the day he ran for 248 yards and the day he scored six touchdowns. It was, believe it or not, two different days.

If Bradford returns to his pre-Colorado form, what’s the story?

OU’s likely still out of the national championship race, but the Sooners have a homegrown product with three years left to play who’s already proven himself on the Cotton Bowl stage. Think the Sooner Nation won’t turn their post-Boulder frowns upside down?

One week, everything changes.

The next week, everything changes again.

With this game, it can happen.

How about Patrick?

The guy’s averaging more than 7 yards per carry. Just maybe, DeMarco Murray can wait. Patrick’s a senior who’s fought through injury problems. But as his one scoring run at Colorado proved, he can be electric.

That kind of guy making it big at the Cotton Bowl, isn’t that just the kind of storyline this game so often produces?

It’s been a long time since Roy Williams left his feet to hit Chris Simms and give Teddy Lehman a 2-yard walk into the end zone, but aren’t the Sooners due for just that kind of moment in this game yet again?

The spectacle

Trent Williams told a great story earlier in the week. The Sooner offensive lineman was remembering his first bus ride through Fair Park.

“That’s the meanest I’ve ever seen fans get. They’re hitting our bus, trying to rock our bus,” he said. “I saw little kids giving the middle finger. I didn’t know it could get that bad.”

Well, that’s certainly part of it. A crazy and hilarious part of it. But the main event is still the game.

It’s the half and half burnt orange and crimson in the bleachers that meet not beyond the end zones but at the 50 on both sides of the stadium. It’s the single tunnel from which both teams, their bands, everything that reaches the turf must merge.

And it is within that rarefied atmosphere that everything happens. A player can be great every week, but it’s never quite the same as being great this week.

After Colorado, all the talk was about the Sooners not making plays. Well, playmaking is its own reward and a good way to win, but it’s never put on a pedestal quite like the stage offered annually at the Cotton Bowl.

Major Applewhite made his name in this game, so did Josh Heupel, first in a losing cause and then as a winner. Somebody’s time always seems to come.

Stakes

The loser will begin its drive toward the Holiday Bowl or, perhaps, Yee Gads, the Independence Bowl. The winner will believe everything’s all right even if it isn’t because that’s just how it goes each year at the Texas State Fair.

“Fortunately, we’re still in control of our destiny,” Sooner linebacker Lewis Baker said.

He couldn’t be more right even if it’s a much more singular notion of destiny that takes hold of most beginning at 2:30 p.m. today.

Because somebody’s going to win and somebody, as long as the series remains true to form, will be more responsible for it than the rest.

Who might it be today?

The fun is finding out.

Jeff Johncox

366-3535

jjohncox@normantranscript.com