Forever, what happened in the Cotton Bowl Oct. 7, 2000 will go down as the most pivotal, historical, meaningful and memorable Red River battle of the Bob Stoops era.

The 63-14 drubbing put on the Longhorns that day let everybody know OU was back, let Stoops and his staff know they were really on to something and let the players know there wasn’t anything they couldn’t accomplish, like winning back-to-back over No. 2 Kansas State (41-31) and No. 1 Nebraska (31-14) the next two times out to plant themselves atop the polls.

The Red River rivalry may never yield so much as it did that day in Dallas because you can only come out of nowhere from nowhere and the Sooners have been somewhere ever since.

And still, today, five days away from the Sooner Nation’s national holiday, that may be the only real difference in what could be this time around. Because, for Saturday’s winner, assuming that winner is OU, all things remain possible.

Begin with the Big 12 South.

If you believe Texas A&M was ever any good under Dennis Franchione, then you have to believe Texas Tech, despite what happened at TCU, must be pretty good again, too.

At the same time, you have to believe any kind of good looking victory Saturday sets the Sooners up as the class of the division. Also, should OU win and look good doing it, it should be favored in every game the rest of the season.

Think about what that means, looking good doing it.

That presupposes the Sooner defense doesn’t save its only fine performance this season for Middle Tennessee, but instead turns the corner and begins playing somewhere close to preseason expectations.

Assume that happens and it doesn’t seem so crazy.

Blast the Longhorns, run the table and whoa, guess what everybody’s talking about again? They might be talking about OU-Nebraska or an OU-Missouri rematch at the Big 12 Championship Game, but they’re talking about something else, too.

They’re talking about Oregon.

A one-loss Sooner team trying to get to 12-1 at the conference championship game?

Talk about buzz.

And if OU comes out on top Saturday, not only could it happen, maybe it should happen.