USC should have an eye on what happens in this game because Texas could very well be a down-the-road opponent for them.

This game, by nature and all of it's it's billed hype, normally can be constructed of any inclusion to throwing away both teams' records to seasonal date. Oklahoma has owned the Texas Longhorns for the past five, count 'em, five engagements between the two teams - - records unseeming in affection for one-another.

I've learned to stop doubting this Texas team since my admissions of their fortune in late 2004 and into the 2005 college football bowl records with Michigan. That was a coming-out party for one Texas QB, Vincent Young.

But this is 2005, and there is quite a separation between the paths of which these two teams have traveled thus far.

To make it short, the Texas Longhorns survived a true test at Columbus, OH., in defeating the Buckeyes of, "The Ohio State University."

The Sooners of Oklahoma hang their simple hat based on last weeks win, albeit in some considerable fashion, over formerly undefeated, but unrecognized, Kansas State. That game ended with OU winning in a lopsided 43-21 kind-of-way.

The win for OU came after a perhaps breath-freshening bye week, which appears to have done them some good.

The Sooners have losses to TCU (17-10) and UCLA (41-24) prior to their break of seemingly (at the time) 'near' good-riddance.

So, I ask, who wins this game? Is it the hopeful newfound OU Sooners? Or is it the longer-reaching Vince Young-led 'Horns of those mighty Texas Longhorns?

I'm taking the Longhorns along the similar lines of the oddsmakers with two-touchdown favoritism. I'm no dummy - and I cannot trust that Oklahoma has turned it around so quickly...

-Chuck-