Sometimes, it seems like things are going great.

It's warm outside, the sun is shining and maybe one of your lame classes was just cancelled. Nothing could be better.

But then you think of something, something that's been bothering you or maybe something in the future that you've been dreading.

Any euphoria you had been feeling comes to a grinding halt and reality hits.

See, we all know how the Texas Longhorns have felt every fall Saturday evening for four years now.

You can just picture it.

Texas is coming off a big win over Baylor or Kansas or Texas Tech on another shining day in Austin and the Longhorns and their legions of fans are happy and having a good time. But, pretty soon, all thoughts drift back north, to the Oklahoma Sooners and all of those good feelings are gone in an instant.

Anything positive that the Texas football program has done in the last four years has been overshadowed by its four straight losses to Oklahoma. Those four losses have kept them out of BCS bowl games and they have eliminated the Longhorns from the national title race before November.

But, maybe more importantly, they have made Texas feel like a second class citizen in its own conference.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that recent losses to the Sooners have been lopsided.

Previous scores include 63-14 and 65-13 losses, but despite having maybe the most talent-filled roster in America, the Longhorns have been forced to feel inferior, like an often picked-on little brother.

Well, no more. It ends this Saturday afternoon in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas where the fifth-ranked Longhorns (4-0) will square off once again with No. 2 Oklahoma (4-0).

Or at least Texas hopes so. What is clear though is, if there was ever a year for Texas to finally get past the Sooners, this is it.

The Big 12 conference, home to both Oklahoma and Texas, is at its weakest point in a long time.

There are no teams in the South division that can compare to the Longhorns and the Sooners and the North division isn't much better.

Barring a major upset, the winner on Saturday has a clear path to a conference championship and, presumably, a spot in the Orange Bowl, home of the national championship game this season.

Those are some pretty high stakes.

But there may be even more on the line with the outcome of this game, such as the career of Texas head coach Mack Brown.

Brown has been coaching college football for 31 years. He has spent 20 years as a head coach and has won 150 games in the process. His teams, either the North Carolina Tar Heels or Longhorns, have not had a losing season since 1989.

He has proven himself and then some in a demanding business. He has thrived in a position where others simply try to survive.

But right now, none of that matters. Fairly or unfairly, everything Mack Brown has done in his career might be on the line with this game.

There have been rumblings in Austin that one more loss to the Sooners might be the final nail in the coffin for Brown, the one that confirms once and for all that Brown can coach like a champ against Missouri and Baylor. But all of that coaching genius seems to be lost when things get really serious, like they usually do against Oklahoma.

So let's see what just might be on the line here for Longhorns Saturday: Conference championship, national championship, head coach's career and the manhood of the entire state of Texas.

That's probably enough incentive.

Fortunately for Brown and the millions of Longhorn faithful, Texas will be sending quite a team into battle on Saturday.

In Vince Young and Cedric Benson they might have the best quarterback-running back combination in the country.

And the defense, led by all-everything linebacker Derrick Johnson, is looking more skilled and more determined than its past versions.

More importantly, Texas players this week have been talking like they expect to go to Dallas and win.

They may be fooling themselves, but sometimes a little confidence, even if it's unfounded, can go along way when you're trying to confront an inferiority complex.

But then again, bad habits are hard to break.

There is no doubting that something happens to the Longhorns and their team of stars when they look across the field and see their arch-enemies from the north, when they realize the enormity of the situation and the task at hand.

In the past, this matchup has transformed them from a confident, talented football team into something much less and has sent them down a path of failure.

Mack Brown, for his own sake anyway, had better pray that he and his players have finally put that all behind them.