After nearly stumbling the week before the big game, either second-ranked Oklahoma or No. 3 Texas is about to pull ahead in the race for the Big 12 South title.

Let the hype officially begin.

“Oklahoma’s a great team. It’s a super week for both states,” Texas coach Mack Brown said.

And it almost wasn’t, thanks to Oklahoma State and Missouri. But the Longhorns defeated the Cowboys 17-15 and the Sooners rallied to beat the Tigers 31-24, leaving the showdown at the Cotton Bowl intact.

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said he wasn’t worried about the close call at Missouri. Last year, the Sooners had edged Kansas State the week before beating the Longhorns 14-3.

“We went into this game after beating Kansas State 38-37 at home. It’s a similar situation,” Stoops said. “We’re excited for this game and confident going in. I imagine we’ll be ready to compete when we go down the ramp.”

Just a few years ago, these traditional powers had slipped outside the circle of national championship contenders. But for the second year in a row, both are unbeaten and ranked in the Top 10.

“When you’re both undefeated, it adds more media attention and more hype to it than four years ago before we got here,” Stoops said. “It’s no different. We go into every game about the same. We’ve won enough around here that we’re confident.”

Up In The Sky: The Sooners and Longhorns play in this weekend’s Big 12 headliner, but Texas Tech at Iowa State could be a close runner-up.

Fans might consider squeezing in a nap Saturday afternoon. The Red Raiders and Cyclones’ game starts at 6 p.m. and with two of the two top passing teams in the league, it’s probably going to be a late night.

Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury was 49-for-59 (83.1 percent) for 474 yards, five TDs, and one interception last weekend in the Red Raiders’ 48-47 overtime win against Texas A&M.

“We’re going to have to do all we can to try to slow them down, but it’s going to be hard. I sure haven’t seen anybody doing that recently,” Iowa State coach Dan McCarney said.

McCarney’s quarterback, Seneca Wallace, leads the league with a passing percentage of 64. His 1,653 passing yards are second in the league only to Kingsbury’s 2,134.

“The amazing thing to me is people act like Kliff and Seneca Wallace have just surfaced in the last couple of months,” Tech coach Mike Leach said. “Kliff and Seneca Wallace have been putting up these types of numbers since the beginning of last year.”

Happy Days: Baylor coach Kevin Steele said he savored his first Big 12 victory for a couple of hours. Then it was back to business. Baylor’s 35-32 comeback victory against Kansas snapped the Bears’ 29-game conference losing streak.

It didn’t take long for the feedback to reach Steele, who is 1-24 against Big 12 teams in his four seasons with Bears.

“I heard a student, unrelated to the program, just a student that happened to go to the game, say that Saturday night on campus was the liveliest environment that he’d ever been around,” Steele said. “Everybody was just walking around smiling and feeling like winners. We need that in this program desperately.”

Time For Overtime: Several coaches during Monday’s conference call weighed in on the pros and cons of overtime.

While nobody wants to get sucked into a marathon like Tennessee’s win against Arkansas, which took six overtimes to decide, the alternative isn’t any better.

“I like the overtimes. I don’t particularly like to get into overtimes, but it is so much better than ties,” said Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum, whose Aggies lost in overtime to Tech on Saturday.

Scout Team: Even with a rejuvenated starting quarterback in Jammal Lord, Nebraska coach Frank Solich still wouldn’t mind having 2001 Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch around this week.

You see, Solich needs to find someone to mimic Missouri quarterback Brad Smith on the Husker scout team this week. Smith ran for 213 yards and two touchdowns and passed for 178 yards and a score against Oklahoma on Saturday.

“If we could get Eric to come back that would be great,” Solich chuckled when asked about adding Crouch to the scout team. “But that’s certainly not going to happen.”

Freshman Curt Dukes, who is taking a redshirt this year, will run the scout offense this week, Solich said.