Texas-Oklahoma: A Sooner Win Guarantees BCS Chaos

This Saturday's Red River Shootout could play a major role in determining who plays in this year's BCS Championship Game.

It's a generally held belief that the winner of the SEC is going to be one of the teams to travel to Pasadena on Jan. 7 but there isn't as much agreement on who the second team will be.  At the moment it looks like Texas.

If Texas wins the Big 12, and if they can do it as an undefeated team—they'll play in the championship, and not too many folks would have a problem with that.

In Saturday's game, the No. 3 Longhorns (5-0) face the No. 18 Sooners (3-2) in the Cotton Bowl, and at this point, there is no telling whether form holds true and the higher ranked Longhorns win.

In Oklahoma's two losses (BYU & Miami) they played without their Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Sam Bradford.  Bradford got injured early in the 14-13 loss to BYU and missed the entire 21-20 loss to Miami.

Bradford's healthy now and if a Heisman Trophy winner can't help a team—who can?

If Bradford had played in both the BYU and Miami games they would have probably won and on the basis of their body of work up to this point, they would probably have been the higher ranked team and the favorite on Saturday.

Texas just hasn't played enough quality teams to make a real assessment of their capabilities at this time.  They didn't exactly dominate Texas Tech and last week they sputtered against Colorado in the first half.

It's not necessary to make any predictions because the matter will be settled soon enough, but what makes this game so interesting is that an Oklahoma victory can turn the BCS rankings upside down.

The ramifications of an Oklahoma win could be large enough to put a real dagger into the hopes of the Big 12 Conference's chance to play in the BCS Championship Game, and if Oklahoma wins the Big 12, the dagger goes deeper.

Hardly anyone considers the Sooners as a real "two-loss" team because they didn't have Bradford for the losses and they do have a  chance to win the Big 12 if he's back to his old self.  Presently they do not have a conference loss.

A "two-loss" team will not be going to the championship game unless there's  a shortage of teams that finish the regular season undefeated or with only one loss.

If the season ended today, the winner of the SEC and Texas would be playing for the title and only the undefeated teams, if there were any, would claim injustice.

If Oklahoma wins on Saturday, it opens up the flood gates for so many scenarios that one could drive him or herself  crazy thinking about all of them.

If Miami wins out, they make a claim because they beat Oklahoma.  If Virginia Tech wins out, they make a claim because they beat Miami.

If there is an undefeated team like Boise St, TCU, Iowa, or a team from the Big East, they make a claim.

There might be a whole slew of one-loss teams hanging around.  USC, along with the aforementioned Miami, Virginia Tech, and the like would be some of the teams with the best chance to get to Pasadena.

There is also a possibility that there could be two teams from the SEC that play for the championship.  Once again, the scenarios seem endless.

This year's Texas Shootout should be one of the best games of the year.  Texas vs Oklahoma!  McCoy vs Bradford!

This game is too closes to call.  I'm making two predictions; It will be a high-scoring contest, and it could be the game that turns the BSC upside down.