Any time meddlesome reporters bring up the cycle in the Texas-Oklahoma series — Texas up, Oklahoma down — Bob Stoops offers a good rebuttal.

Winning at the State Fair is important, he concedes, but foremost is winning the Big 12 title. And in case you lost count, the Sooners have been conference champs three of the last four years.

Perfectly logical argument, all right, and here’s mine:

Fans aren’t logical.

If you’re lucky enough to make it out to the Cotton Bowl today, do me a couple of favors. First, stay out of the corn dog line closest to the press elevator, at least until I get mine. And while you’re at it, take a long look around at 90,000 of your peers.

Notice how they react wildly to the slightest provocation. Watch veins bulge and eyes pop. Hear screams. Feel the rage.

Then ask yourself this: Does now seem like a good time to engage this sweaty, frothing lunatic next to me in a thoughtful conversation about the merits of conference titles in the face of this bitter loss, or should I buy her another beer and hope it pacifies her for the long drive home?

Few remember where they were when their teams were crowned league champions. But Texas-OU fans reel off memories as if they were birthdays or funerals, generating a question:

Given a choice of a Texas-OU win or a conference title — one or the other, but not both — which would you rather have?

Coaches long before Stoops have insisted that the conference title trumps all. Like Stoops, they do it in the down side of the cycle.

Once upon a time, the point probably had some credibility. Texas and OU weren’t even in the same conference most of the last century, meaning you might be able to forget a loss until next year. Winning the Big 8 or Southwest Conference meant a trip to the Orange Bowl or Cotton Bowl. Long-standing tradition added to the allure.

But other than the fact that it might lead to a berth in the BCS title game, what does a conference title mean anymore?

Better question: What does it mean to win a conference you were ready to bolt?

Maybe if Texas or Oklahoma didn’t win the Big 12 so often, fans wouldn’t take it for granted. Maybe if Nebraska stepped up this year, which seems entirely possible. The Longhorns and Sooners don’t look like they have the stuff of BCS champs, which certainly detracts from the game’s national impact.

Still, even as the national implications wane, the bigger the game looms along the I-35 corridor.

Winning Texas-OU cures a lot of ills. That’s not just my opinion.

“The best way to keep OU fans happy is simple,” Barry Switzer told Sports Illustrated in 2003.

“Beat Texas.”

Switzer went on to ruminate about an “Okie inferiority complex,” which I won’t touch. It’s hard enough to psychoanalyze your spouse. Not that I would, honey, should you happen to read this by accident. Characterizing an entire state is a little too reckless for my tastes. Besides, Switzer didn’t have to answer e-mail.

But if you buy into his diagnosis, his prescription seems pretty safe:

“There’s no better cure than kicking Texas’ butt.”

The sentiment is raw, instinctive, emotional, and it speaks to the nature of what makes this event what it is, not to mention its direct impact on the job market either side of the Red River.

For the record, based on Landry Jones’ slight edge in experience over Garrett Gilbert, it looks like the cycle will turn from Mack Brown to Stoops this year. If that prediction holds up, it’ll be interesting to see if Stoops’ perspective changes.

Either way, he should remember this: Any great rivalry supersedes all else in the heat of the moment, searing into memory the good, the bad, the awful and maybe even leaving a scar. Try duplicating that experience with your little conference title treatise.