Everyone seems scared of my Oklahoma State Cowboys. Let me tell you, I’ve seen this team, up close and in person. Make no mistake – they will beat someone this Saturday. The question is who? It could, just maybe, be the high and mighty Longhorns. State has knocked off bigger game: even Texas fans remember the Cowboys’ beatings of the very teams Mack Brown & Co. were regularly embarrassed by in Bob Stoops and those hated and feared Oklahoma Sooners.
   It could be that Oklahoma State comes waltzing across Texas and winds up beating the No. 4 team in the land. But it will more likely be themselves the Pokes lay waste to.

The New Orleans Saints typically don’t fare well in games following a bye week. The extra preparation time tends to give both coaches and players just enough rope to hang themselves. Sunday against the visiting Baltimore Ravens, the Saints did everything they could in an all-out attempt to shed their newfound reputation as a surging division leader. Running back Reggie Bush not only coughed up an early fumble, but also threw an interception on a halfback pass play that fooled not a single Ravens defensive player. Quarterback Drew Brees suffered through what Saints fans can only hope was his worst game of the season, throwing not just one, but two interceptions that were returned for 12-yard touchdowns by Ravens defensive backs. Why head coach Sean Payton decided it would be wise to underutilize running back Deuce McAllister in favor of trick plays and ill-advised passes up field only shows that the Saints went into the game with a lack of confidence.

For more on the Saints, UT football, and high school football ...

The only time I laughed during the clash of the Longhorns and Red Raiders was at a shirt in the stands. It read “Tuck Fexas.” Now that spark of creativity is a natural for Panhandle folks, who claim Buddy Holly and the Flatlanders as their own. Of course, who wouldn’t be creative when the goal is to get the hell out of the flat, blustery nowhere as quick as you can? Out-of-town Texas Tech frosh are quickly clued in to the need for Chapstick and the cruel, cruel trick of keeping all of the booze stores outside the city limits. Talk about a dry town.

But that’s not what I’m writing about here. I’m interested in the new instant replay rule, which reared its ugly, dust-blown head one too many times during the game. Count 'em. Six disputed calls reconsidered. Five of them stood. The other, a touchdown run by Texas QB Colt McCoy, was inconsequential as the Horns punched it right in for a score.

Sigmund Freud, when he wasn’t talking about your attraction to your mother, called our fixation with technology the “prosthetic god,” and opined that what we think will make our lives simpler, actually mucks up the works. So it is with instant replay. Perhaps the money would be better spent training refs to make the right call the first time. Oh, wait, they did five times out of six and the sixth didn’t matter.

Plus the human element has not been removed. The disputes now are about when to call for a review or fouls missed entirely. It’s a game after all. Why should we figure machines are going the make the results clear? Next thing you know we’ll make all of our voting machines electronic. Oops. Forget I said that.

I’m interested in what you, dear readers, think on the subject. Fire away.

When Nebraska wide receiver Terrence Nunn hauled in that third-and-three pass from quarterback Zac Taylor with a mere two minutes remaining in Saturday’s game at Lincoln, he held the fruition of a significant upset in his hands. The Cornhuskers were then leading 20-19 and all they had to do from that first down on was run out the clock on the half-frozen Texas Longhorns. Fortunately Aaron Ross had other plans. As Ross and his magnificent helmet jarred the ball from Nunn’s grasp, momentum dramatically switched once Marcus Griffin fell upon it. Through sheer luck and a touch of resiliency, the defending national champion Longhorns salvaged any hopes of Texas repeating its glorious 2005 title run.

I knew Texas would beat Nebraska the moment I saw a Cornhuskers fan in the stands do the "Horns down" sign for the television camera. Oh how the mighty have fallen. There was a day not too long ago when Big Red looked down on Burnt Orange in a nice, condescending, Midwestern kind of way. I remember when my father sold his company to a Nebraska-based firm in the Eighties. The boss of the new conglomerate came with us to a Longhorn game and acted a lot like he was at an Abilene Christian T-ball contest, oh so quaint it was. Now I imagine many Cornies are chocking up the Horns' latest win to dumb luck. But we know the truth: Aaron Ross created another fumble and the Huskers no longer believe.

Some of you may be wondering what happened to the Longhorns in the first quarter as the Baylor Bears put the hurt on the reigning national champs for a nanosecond before totally falling apart. As a guy who was formerly sort-of engaged to a Baylor co-ed, I can sum it up in one word: naughty.

Yes, the Bears were being naughty. Everyone told them they didn’t have a chance against the big, bad Mega-State-U, and they looked upon it much as they did when told that dancing is sinful, and sleeping with a preacher’s daughter is a lot more fun when it’ll send you straight to hell. (Hell, by the way, is located somewhere near Waco, I have it on good authority.) It made them want to do it even more.

Somewhere behind perfectly manicured hedges, Donovan McNabb’s patronizing mama comforts her sobbing son with a warm bowl of Campbell’s Chunky Soup. The bruises on McNabb’s hip from Charles Grant's helmet make every swallow a wince-filled reminder of the New Orleans Saints’ 27-24 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles Sunday afternoon. Former Westlake Chaparral Drew Brees filled McNabb’s temporarily-vacated hero role by tossing three critical touchdowns and meticulously leading his team on an eight-and-a-half minute drive that clipped the wings of the visiting Eagles with a game-winning field goal. As the Superdome crowd enjoyed its team’s third straight home victory, football pundits nationwide could be heard in mass literally thrusting themselves upon the Saints bandwagon with the urgency of a ravenous carpetbagging herd.

The Crying Boy of OU is apparently getting his mug plastered all over T-shirts and e-mail attachments slinging back and forth across the Red River. See the above photo of the sobbing youngster who may or may not have been upset that his beloved Sooners got squashed by the University of Texas Longhorns. Or maybe his dad wouldn't buy him a corny dog.

In either case, he's not the only one in Norman with crocodile tears. OU Coach Bob Stoops has also been letting a few drip over what he sees as "questionable" calls made in favor of Texas in the Sooners' 28-10 loss last Saturday. Was it a lateral or was it a forward pass? Did Adrian Peterson actually fumble or did the ground knock the ball loose? Who cares, Bob? You lost.

If you would have told Pig Skinny on Friday afternoon that the Oklahoma Sooners would outgain the Texas Longhorns 332-232 and go eight-for-16 on third down, the Skinny would have declared a certain victory for the Sooners based on early returns. Unfortunately for OU, the Sooners also loaded the ballot box with five turnovers and 11 penalties. The 28-10 final was in question well into the fourth quarter, but the defining moment of the game came in the third, when UT's offensive line moved the OU defensive front seven yards on a third-and-one quarterback sneak. Kudos to the UT program, who proved they aren't just a bunch of pansies who can't win without Vince Young, and to all the Longhorn fans around Austin who will undoubtedly not let me forget the game any time before 362 days from now. The Sooners again got jobbed on some calls in a big game, at least this time it didn't overtly affect the outcome. It's pretty obvious at this point that Herr Stoopsy has lost his vice grip on his team's focus. The false-start penalties are completely unacceptable this late in the season, and if Bob and the boys can't do any better than that, we might as well not even show up for the game.