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