The Stakes

• Big 12 title game: The Sooners received a blessed gift from Texas A&M, which upset Texas 12-7 Friday. Now the Sooners, if they survive Bedlam, can make it a Big Red showdown against Nebraska next week in Kansas City.

• Bowl hopes: If the Cowboys win, they need not check the Kansas-Missouri score. OSU would be 7-5 and be quite appetizing to the Independence or Texas or Insight or even Sun bowls. Cowboy fans have responded in December, and it would pay off. But lose, and OSU is staying home unless Missouri beats Kansas.

• BCS hopes: If the Sooners lose today, they drop out of BCS contention. Texas' loss to A&M means the Sooners won't be an at-large BCS selection. It's the Fiesta Bowl, as Big 12 champion, or bust.

• Keeping Bedlam Bedlam: OSU won five of eight Bedlams from 1995-2002. But the Sooners have won three in a row, including two by rout. This rivalry needs a close game; OSU needs a victory.

• Bedlam domination: You can make figures do many things. If OU wins today, the Sooners will have their longest Bedlam winning streak, four, since 1988-91 and can accurately say that Oklahoma has lost in Stillwater twice in the past 40 years, thrice in the past 60 years.

• Ticket sales: OSU AD Mike Holder jacked up ticket prices; revenue rose, attendance declined. Holder says there's no going back, so the only way to boost attendance is boost excitement. A Bedlam victory is the perfect tonic.

• Momentum: On Oct. 7, the Sooners suffered their seventh loss in 18 games, after going 60-6 thei