The First Chapter in the Bird-Magic Rivalry

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I find it ironic that the college basketball national championship game in 1979 is still, 35 years later, the highest–rated college basketball game ever televised.

Because I didn't see it. I've never seen it — only highlights.

In those days, I was working at a self–serve gas station, and I had to work that night. I remember listening to the game on the radio at the station, but I didn't see any of it. I could only imagine what was happening in the host town, Salt Lake City, based on what I heard.

It was between Michigan State and Indiana State, the first matchup of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in what became a classic NBA rivalry. As USA Today observed five years ago, it was the start of something special.

But that is the sort of observation that can be made in hindsight. Those are easy.

For example, it is easy now to say that Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana were destined to be four–time Super Bowl champs, but I remember when they both broke into the NFL. All eyes were on others, but, in the course of their careers, Bradshaw and Montana turned struggling franchises into winners.

The same is true of Magic and Bird. At the end of the '80s, it was possible to look back at their epic postseason confrontations and realize that their rivalry had been the kind of thing you rarely find in team sports — a rivalry between two individuals. There were other players who played, of course, but Magic and Bird got the attention.

I guess every NBA team has been a rival of the Celtics since the days of Bill Russell, and every NBA team has been a rival of the Lakers for nearly as long, going back to the days of Wilt Chamberlain. Likewise, fans have to choose sides when the two teams meet, and most of them are likely cheering for a team they never support during the regular season.

I'm not an NBA fan — in fact, I'm really not much of a basketball fan — so I was spared having to make that choice and could simply enjoy watching them play.

You know, it is kind of amusing when I think back on that first encounter between Magic and Bird 35 years ago.

I don't recall the hype that preceded the game. I'm sure it was marketed as some kind of duel between future NBA legends, the kind of hype that accompanies many collegiate confrontations.

That kind of buildup doesn't always prove to be true. At the time, of course, it probably doesn't matter, and few probably remember it years later. Potential doesn't always coincide with reality.

But, in this case, it did.

A Rivalry Like No Other

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It is much too early to label Maria Sharapova and Petra Kvitova the successors to Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova as the greatest rivals in women's tennis.

Sharapova and Kvitova have only played in one Grand Slam final. There may be several more clashes in their future — or there may be no more.

But, since we are only removed from their memorable Wimbledon final by a few weeks, I just thought I would reflect a little on that Evert–Navratilova rivalry.

Their last Grand Slam final was played 25 years ago. It was in the French Open, where they played for a Grand Slam title the first time, back in 1973. When they played for that French Open title in 1986, Evert was 31. Navratilova was not yet 30. The world had watched them grow from teenagers to their sport's elder stateswomen.

I don't know if we will ever witness another rivalry like it. In a 15–year span, they met 80 times. More than three–quarters of the time, they met in the final of a tournament — and nearly a quarter of those matches were Grand Slam finals.

I have compared them to the Lakers and the Celtics of the 1980s. That's a good comparison, I think, although it doesn't hold up 100%.

True, those teams didn't face each other in the NBA Finals as frequently in the 1980s as they did in the 1960s; nevertheless, in the 1980s it often seemed that, no matter how well any of the other teams had played, the early rounds of the playoffs merely served as warmups for the inevitable championship series between Boston and Los Angeles.

And that's what the women's singles were like in Grand Slams in the 1970s and 1980s. Yes, other women did win those titles from time to time — but the early rounds of tournaments often seemed like a waste of time in those days.

There was Chris Evert, and there was Martina Navratilova. And then there was everyone else.

A Rivalry Like No Other

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This year's Super Bowl is a little more than a week away.

The Super Bowl has been played every year for nearly 50 years, usually in southerly, sun–splashed climes. It's been played often in California, New Orleans, Miami, and it is not a complete stranger to Texas. It was played in Houston twice.

This year, however, it will be played in Dallas — for the first time.

Lately, the folks in Irving and Dallas have been unrolling all their new facilities and vehicles and gadgets that are intended to accommodate the needs and desires of visitors in town for the big game — and earn local entrepreneurs a neat profit in the process.

Back in the summer and into the early fall, North Texans harbored hopes that the Dallas Cowboys might host their own Super Bowl, but those hopes were dashed rather rapidly.

I figure that, in the long run, that will be good news for local merchants, who are counting on the revenue from visitors from two cities. If the local team had made it to the Super Bowl, logic tells me that approximately half of the out–of–town visitors would have been eliminated.

So it's a good thing for all those folks who want to make money from this — especially the ones who run the hotels and the motels, who would have lost the income from all those out–of–towners who will need rooms for several days.

People are always going to have to eat, even if they're from a nearby community and only in town on the day of the game, so restaurateurs wouldn't have been affected quite as severely, but they, too, would have had to lower their expectations.

But the Cowboys went into a tailspin early. Between the Cowboys' and the Longhorns' declines, football dropped from sports fans' radars around here, and, remarkably, the sports talk in this area in October did not focus on football but on baseball, as the Rangers advanced to their first–ever World Series.

I grew up in Arkansas. I have lived in this area for most of the last 25 years. Until a few months ago, I never thought I would see a time during football season when baseball was the leading topic of conversation, but that is exactly what happened here.

It was gratifying for baseball fans, but it often felt, to me, as if the natural order of things had been disrupted.

There have been times when it's felt like one of those alternate reality episodes from the Twilight Zone. It was astonishing to witness the vacuum that was created when the Cowboys and the Longhorns crashed to earth. Talk about tumbling into a black hole.

Only recently, it seems, have people around here remembered that they were going to have a Super Bowl here in early February. It is almost as if the plan to host a Super Bowl locally depended upon whether the Cowboys would be in it — and, when it became clear that the Cowboys would not be in the playoffs, the right to host the Super Bowl defaulted to some other city.

It's probably going to be a good thing for the economy that Cowboys Stadium (known locally as Jerry World for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones) will host two cities, but I can't help thinking of what might have been.

Assuming that everything else would have been unchanged — if the Cowboys had been the NFC's representative in the Super Bowl, who would have been waiting for them from the AFC? None other than the Pittsburgh Steelers — and, if you've been following football as long as I have (or longer), you know what magic that matchup conjures up in one's mind.

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There are all sorts of rivalries in football, but the Dallas–Pittsburgh rivalry in the Super Bowl is unique. I guess you could say it's been a rivalry of milestones.

It began 35 years ago, on Jan. 18, 1976, when the teams met in Super Bowl X. The Cowboys, as I mentioned earlier this week, became the first wild–card team to play in a Super Bowl on that day, but the Steelers won the game, 21–17.

Even if you aren't old enough to remember that day, if you've watched any Super Bowl highlights shows in the last 35 years, you're all but sure to have seen Lynn Swann's amazing acrobatic catch from that game.

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Some folks will tell you it was the greatest catch ever made in pro football.

Then, three years later, on Jan. 21, 1979, the teams met in the first–ever Super Bowl rematch.

Superstitious people tend to be wary of the number 13, but Super Bowl XIII was far from unlucky for football fans. Not only was it the first rematch of a Super Bowl, but it would also mark the first time that a team won its third Super Bowl title, no matter who won the game.

Once again, the Steelers were victorious. The final score was 35–31, and, as one weekly newsmagazine declared in its headline on its game story, "This one really was Super."

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Part of what made it super was a fantastic fourth–quarter comeback by Dallas that was brilliantly captured in NFL Films' wrapup, which can be seen above.

In hindsight, that game featured many of the greatest football players of my youth — Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Franco Harris, etc., etc. But the play that will always stand out in my memory is of Jackie Smith, a tight end who played much of his career for woeful St. Louis Cardinals teams, dropping a pass in the end zone that could have altered the outcome.

I think everyone watching the game, whether they were pulling for the Steelers or the Cowboys, felt bad for Smith, writhing in agony in the Orange Bowl end zone after dropping that pass.

"Bless his heart," I remember an announcer saying, "he's got to be the sickest man in America."

It took nearly 20 years, but the Cowboys finally got their revenge in Super Bowl XXX, which was played 15 years ago today. It really wasn't a surprise. Dallas went into that game favored by nearly two touchdowns.

With that victory, the Cowboys pulled even with the San Francisco 49ers in total Super Bowl victories with five. At that time, the Steelers had won only the Super Bowls in which they played in the 1970s — their two wins over Dallas along with wins over Minnesota and Los Angeles. Pittsburgh has won two Super Bowls since that time and now leads all other teams in that category with six Super Bowl titles.

It was also the first time that a football team won its third Super Bowl in four years. That's an accomplishment that has been matched only by the New England Patriots.

Steeler fans probably don't like to think about that game too much. Pittsburgh has been to seven Super Bowls, more than any other team, and the one they played in 15 years ago today was their only loss — so far.

As a Packer fan, I hope that will not still be the case a week from Sunday.

The Renewal of a Passionate Rivalry

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Tomorrow afternoon, the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers will face each other in Chicago with the NFC championship on the line.

Now, there are many rivalries in the NFL. None are as old as the Bears and the Packers, who have been playing each other twice a year for the last 90 years. Given their history, you might think they had faced each other in the playoffs several times, but this will be only the second time they have met in the postseason.

To remember that other playoff game, you would have to be old enough to remember Pearl Harbor.

I was talking with my father on Thursday, and I observed that it was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, in which Kennedy uttered his famous line, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

We talked a little about famous presidential speeches, and Dad mentioned that he remembered listening to FDR's "day of infamy" speech the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. That speech was given the Monday before Green Bay and Chicago last met in the postseason.

In those days, as I wrote last month, NFL championships were played between the teams who won their respective divisions (or conferences, as they were called for a time).

Usually, there were no other playoffs — unless there was a tie atop one or both of the divisions. Then there would be a playoff game between the teams who tied for a division title (even if one of the teams had swept the regular–season series between the two), and the winner would advance to the championship game.

That was how Green Bay and Chicago, always members of the same conference/division, wound up playing each other following the conclusion of the 1941 season. Both teams went 10–1, splitting their regular–season series, so they met on Dec. 14, 1941 at Chicago's Wrigley Field to break the tie.

At the time, there was no such thing as a "wild card" in the playoffs. That was a concept that wasn't really introduced until nearly 30 years later.

Even so, wild cards have been a part of the postseason in pro football for the last 40 years — ever since the merger of the AFL and NFL. In some years, the playoff structure has allowed two wild card teams in each conference.

Both Green Bay and Chicago have been in the playoffs as divisional champions and wild cards. But in all those years, this is only the second time that both teams have qualified for the playoffs in the same season.

That other time was nine years ago, when the New England Patriots upset the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl. Both the Packers and Bears lost in the divisional round of the playoffs. If both had won, they would have faced each other for the NFC title — 60 years after their last playoff meeting.

But that did not happen.

Even though the teams have not played each other for a championship before, the rivalry is as heated as any you'll find in the NFL. The mere mention of the Packers and the Bears to a true pro football fan ought to conjure up images of Vince Lombardi and George Halas prowling the sidelines, Dick Butkus sacking Bart Starr before the NFL was even keeping track of that particular statistic, Ray Nitschke tackling Gale Sayers, games played in the mud and the snow and the bitter cold.

This isn't your father's football. This is your grandfather's football, played the way it used to be played. Leather helmets, I heard someone say this week, will be optional.

I remember hearing a story from one day in the 1960s when the Bears and Packers faced each other. Halas came to the Packers' locker room door prior to kickoff and was stopped by security. He protested that he had to see Lombardi. It was urgent.

The message was relayed to Lombardi, who came to the door to see what Halas needed to talk to him about.

Halas said, "Vince, I just want to tell you that you'd better have your boys ready to play. Because we're going to kick your ass!"

And Halas turned around and walked back to his locker room.

I don't know what, if anything, was on the line that day — other than pride and bragging rights. In the Bears–Packers rivalry, that's usually enough.

When they started calling the division in which the Packers and Bears compete the "Black and Blue Division," they really knew what they were talking about. It's a rivalry that has always been capable of stirring fierce passions.

Oddly, though, the newspapers in the two cities seem to have been falling all over themselves to be respectful of each other. Even when they're teasing.

Frankly, I'm a little disappointed. I expected more, I guess.

• Mark Konkol of the Chicago Sun–Times tells readers that the Bears' quarterback's father is a "cheesehead" — which is, of course, the nickname that is often used for Packer fans.
  
  "Don't worry," he tells his readers. "It's not what you think." And it isn't.


• Cheryl Jackson reports in the Sun–Times that Chicago watering holes anticipate the kind of business they normally don't enjoy at this time of year.
  
  And it's hard to argue with that. With daytime highs expected to be in the teens and Chicago's legendary fickle, swirling winds on hand as always, you need something to get people to brave the elements — assuming they don't have tickets to the game.


• Rex Huppke and Gerry Smith, using some clever wordplay in the Chicago Tribune, manage to capture some of the animosity — but none of what Hunter Thompson might have called the fear and loathing — that exists between Chicago and Green Bay.
  
  "Chicagoans stand united," write Huppke and Smith, "Packtose intolerant, loathers of cheese in all its forms, sneering as often as possible in the direction of those green and gold neighbors to the north."
  
  It is truly, as they observe, a rivalry like no other. Actually, it's a way of life.
  
  
• Maybe the most critical thing I have seen from journalists in either town in the last week has come from Pete Dougherty of the Green Bay Press–Gazette, who asserts that the pressure to win now is on the Bears because of their age.
  
  But that's simply a statement of fact. "[L]ooking to the future," he writes, "Chicago Bears General Manager Jerry Angelo needs to draft unusually well starting this year to remain a title contender."
  
  The Packers, on the other hand, are locked and loaded for the next several years, Dougherty says, and I think he is right.

But ...

C'mon, guys! This is football! This is Green Bay–Chicago!

Where's the contempt?

Aggies Seek Reversal of Fortune

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I don't know if you've noticed, but — with a few noteworthy exceptions — this year's crop of bowl games has turned out to be somewhat disappointing.

Oh, there have been a few games that lived up to whatever hype there was prior to kickoff — but let's be honest, there really hasn't been much to hype, beyond the still–to–be–played BCS championship game.

Frankly, that hasn't surprised me. When this year's bowl lineup was announced, I pinpointed a handful of games that intrigued me — and decided I might watch parts of the others if I had nothing better to do.

If you knew how long I have been a fan of college football, you would be astonished by that.

One of the games that intrigued me from the start, though, is the one that will be played here in north Texas tonight — the Cotton Bowl between Texas A&M and LSU.

It's an old rivalry that has lain dormant since 1995, when the Aggies opened the season with a 33–17 win over LSU at College Station, Texas. (Since that day, by the way, A&M has lost five straight games to Southeastern Conference schools.)

That was totally in character for this series. If one of the teams is playing on its home field, that team usually wins. When the game is played at a neutral site, as it has been seven times (including their only previous bowl game encounter, the Orange Bowl that was played on Jan. 1, 1944), it's been even. Literally. Their record at neutral sites is 3–3–1.

This will be their 50th meeting so, clearly, most of their games have been played at College Station or Baton Rouge. In fact, you have to go back more than half a century to find the last time the teams played on a neutral site.

It was right here, in Dallas, on Sept. 24, 1955 (the same day that President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack), and the Aggies won, 28–0. Bear Bryant was coaching A&M in those days.

It was also the first season that Paul Dietzel was LSU's head coach. Modern football fans may not recognize that name, but, in the next few years, Dietzel led the Tigers to their only national championship in the 20th century, and he coached the school's only Heisman Trophy winner to date.

Before that, their last neutral–site meeting was that Orange Bowl game on New Year's Day 1944. That 1943 season was an anomaly in the history of this series. The teams met during the regular season, too, in Baton Rouge, and the visiting Aggies won, 28–13. But the Tigers won the rematch in Miami, 19–14.

The other five neutral–site games were played before or during World War I.

At various times, LSU has been a fixture on A&M's schedule, most recently in the decade covering the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Aggies lost four of five games between 1986 and 1990, but they won all five games played between 1991 and 1995, which also happened to be a period of virtually unparalleled success for the A&M program.

LSU, on the other hand, went from being a perennial SEC contender in the mid– to late 1980s to enduring a string of sub–.500 finishes from 1989 to 1994. The Tigers' loss to the Aggies in September 1995 did not prevent them from eventually earning a bowl bid for the first time since 1988. By that time, they were on their way back to the top.

In the last decade or so, both schools' fortunes have been reversed from what they were in 1995. LSU hasn't had a losing season since 1999; in fact, the Tigers have posted 10 wins or more in six of the last 10 seasons (including this one).

But the last two years were not particularly good for the Tigers. After beating Ohio State for the national title, LSU slumped to 8–5 in 2008 and rebounded slightly to 9–4 in 2009 — numbers that many programs would envy but hardly what LSU fans have been accustomed to.

Meanwhile, 2010 has been, by far, the Aggies' best year since they lost the 1999 Sugar Bowl to Ohio State and finished 11–3.

The numbers will tell you that the 9–3 Aggies have only matched their best single–season victory total since that time, but that isn't the whole story.

They went 9–3 in 2006 as well, but their reward for a campaign in which their only significant win was against Texas was a trip to the Holiday Bowl.

Don't get me wrong. Beating Texas always means something, and it did have more value in 2006, coming less than a year after Texas won the national title, than it did this year, when Texas was coming off a loss in the national championship game last January and, more recently, had been beaten to a pulp in six of its last eight games.

But the Aggies of 2006 didn't have any other truly quality wins (or "statement games") that year. They lost to the three best teams they faced other than Texas — Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Besides UT, the only winning teams the Aggies beat were Missouri and Oklahoma State — and, when they took the field in San Diego for the Holiday Bowl, they were hammered by 9–3 California.

(If you're an aficionado of A&M trivia, that was Dennis Franchione's last bowl appearance with the Aggies. He was gone after the 2007 season.)

A finish like the one Texas endured this year was probably the kind of finish that most people envisioned for the Aggies when they went 3–3 in the first half of the season, but then wide receiver Ryan Tannehill was switched to quarterback and the Aggies averaged 30.6 points in the five games he started (which included victories over Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas Tech).

And their reward is a trip to the Cotton Bowl.

Longtime A&M fans — the ones whose memories go back to when the Aggies competed in the old Southwest Conference — remember when going to the Cotton Bowl was the prize for a great season. For those of us who were raised in the Southwest Conference, I guess it always will be.

Personally, I feel the city of Dallas made a serious mistake in not actively promoting the Cotton Bowl for BCS status when it had the chance. Yes, the Cotton Bowl stadium has been around for 80 years. Yes, the city would have needed to make a substantial financial commitment to make it acceptable to the BCS.

But I believed then — and I believe now — the investment would have been worth it.

Well, that's really a topic for another time, I suppose.

This will be the Aggies' 12th Cotton Bowl, but it's been nearly a quarter of a century since they've won one. They've lost five straight since.

In all, they have played in 15 bowl games since their last victory in the Cotton Bowl, and their overall record is 3–12.

Can they end their skid?

I think they can — and the reason is as simple as the old adage that "defense wins championships."

Well, in this case, defense can't win a championship — but it definitely could win a bowl game.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the defense was known as the "Wrecking Crew." In recent years, I've heard Aggie fans criticize the defense, saying — and not without justification — that it didn't meet the standards of the defenses that R.C. Slocum used to put on the field.

(That has always seemed like a rather odd criticism to me, given that Slocum was run off because he wasn't winning. Slocum is the winningest coach in school history.)

But, in spite of all the talk about Tannehill's exploits this season, coach Mike Sherman's achievement in reviving the Aggie defense might be the story of the year in Aggieland. They had the best run defense in the Big 12 (#15 in the country), and that could make for some interesting plays against an offense that had the 31st run offense in the nation.

The passing game really doesn't seem likely to play a prominent role in LSU's game plan unless the Tigers find themselves having to claw back from a deficit. LSU's aerial attack was 107th in the nation — and I'm guessing that suits the Aggies just fine. They were 93rd in the nation against the pass.

When the Aggies have the ball, of course, they will be putting it in the apparently capable hands of Tannehill, who was 33rd in the nation in passing efficiency despite starting fewer than half of the team's games.

He does figure to be challenged when he throws the ball — LSU's pass defense was ninth in the nation, and the Tigers had to face three of the country's top four passers so you know they've been tested — but if LSU emphasizes pass defense, its 40th–ranked run defense could well be rendered vulnerable to Cyrus Gray, the Aggies' top rusher.

Gray didn't have eye–popping numbers, but he contributed about what LSU's top rusher, Stevan Ridley, did on the ground — roughly 86 yards and one touchdown per game. He didn't carry the ball as frequently, though, so his per–carry average was much better (5.74 to 4.63).

The numbers tell me this could be a scrap, a real backyard brawl, and that always makes for interesting television.

But let's examine the motivations.

The Aggies are on a six–game winning streak, hungry to return to national prominence. To outsiders, they may seem to be taking baby steps in that direction, and the Cotton Bowl may not seem like much of a seaon–ending reward.

But, as someone who grew up in the Southwest Conference, I know the Cotton Bowl is hardly a consolation prize to the Aggies. It is certainly preferable to the Holiday Bowl. I know they relish the opportunity to end their Cotton Bowl losing streak, even if it isn't in the actual Cotton Bowl stadium.

And, for a team whose last bowl championship came nearly a decade ago in the Gallery Furniture Bowl, the label "Cotton Bowl champions" sounds pretty good.

The Tigers have enjoyed a lot of success in recent years. Coach Les Miles is wrapping up his sixth season at the helm, and the Tigers have won at least 10 games in four of them.

There may be a certain amount of motivation for LSU in that. If the Tigers win tonight, they will have their fourth 11–win season since 2005.

My thinking is that the Tigers and their fans may be complacent. They may be inclined to see the Cotton Bowl as a consolation prize after all their recent BCS appearances. They may not appreciate a trip to Dallas.

But the Aggies, even though their campus is only about 150 miles away, won't feel that way.

And I think they will not only cover the two–point spread the oddsmakers have given to LSU. I think they will win the game. Texas A&M 27, LSU 21.

Cowboys-Redskins Once Meant Something

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This Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins will meet in a renewal of what was once a great rivalry in the NFL.

They'll be playing in Cowboys Stadium in nearby Arlington and, because of the way the broadcasting rules are set up in the NFL, no other games can be televised locally while the team from the local market is playing a game in its home stadium.

That's too bad because there are several other games with playoff implications being played at the same time. But, if you live in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, unless you have access to the satellite TV package that gives you the broadcasts of every NFL game being played on Sunday, you're stuck with the Cowboys and the Redskins.

There was a time when football fans around here wouldn't have felt they were stuck. They would have eagerly anticipated the game, stocked up on gameday food and drinks — and taken the phone off the hook when the game began.

It was more than a game. It was an event.

A Cowboys–Redskins game doesn't hold much allure now, with the Redskins at 5–8 and the Cowboys at 4–9, but 31 years ago, it was a different story.

On Dec. 16, 1979, at Texas Stadium in Irving, Roger Staubach brought the Cowboys back not once but twice from 13–point deficits against the Redskins, the second time for keeps. As a result of their 35–34 victory over the Redskins, the Cowboys went on to the playoffs, where they lost to the Los Angeles Rams. The Redskins went home.

Staubach's career ended shortly after the Cowboys' season did. Consequently, his last victory as a pro came against the Redskins.

Ironically, his coach, Tom Landry, also recorded his last victory (in 1988) against the Cowboys' old nemesis, and Landry's successor, Jimmy Johnson, recorded his first victory (and the only win of his inaugural NFL season) against the Redskins.

By that time, the mere mention of the Cowboys–Redskins rivalry could still make Dallas football fans' hearts beat a little faster, but the series clearly had lost something. Maybe it was the fact that, a decade after Staubach's departure, the Cowboys no longer possessed an offense that was capable of striking quickly and often.

Watch the attached clip and you'll see that there was a reason why they called Staubach "Captain Comeback."

But there was also a reason why the Dallas defensive unit was known in the 1970s as "Doomsday." You can see that, too, in the Cowboys' miraculous comeback against the Redskins 31 years ago today.

There were many reasons why the Cowboys–Redskins rivalry was special in those days.

Maybe, someday, it will be again.

The Red River Rivalry

Over the years, the Oklahoma-Texas football game has been one of those rivalries that has taken on a distinct life of its own.

It always matters who wins, no matter what the records are, no matter what the rankings are (or even whether either team is ranked). Of course, the game is that much more interesting when things like unbeaten records and possible conference and national championships are thrown into the mix.

The 2008 edition of the "Red River Rivalry" promises to be the most anticipated game between the two schools since 2004, when #2 Oklahoma shut out #5 Texas, 12-0.

That was the first time Oklahoma had won five straight against Texas in 30 years.

Such a winning streak won’t be on the line this time. OU won the game last year, Texas won it the year before that.

But both teams will be ranked in the top 5 when they kick off next Saturday. The Sooners made sure their record would have no blemishes when they buried Baylor 49-17 Saturday afternoon. The Longhorns remained unbeaten with their 38-14 victory over Colorado Saturday night.

The winner of next Saturday’s game at the Cotton Bowl should be one of the favorites to play for the national title in January.

Of course, unbeaten Texas Tech and Oklahoma State might have something to say about that. Both are in the same division of the Big XII as Texas and OU.

And as Thayer Evans observes in the New York Times, "The game could ... muddle the polls if Texas wins. The Longhorns would join Alabama, Louisiana State and Missouri in the battle for No. 1."

ABC is set to televise the game on Saturday, starting at 11 a.m. (Central).