One week from today the future of the 2009 Oklahoma State football team will have been shaped.

One week from today this sports section will be filled with stories and photos and analysis from the Oklahoma State-Georgia football game right here in Stillwater.

One week from today we’ll either be talking about the Cowboys as a Big 12 and national championship contender or a program still learning how to win the big one.

Make no mistake about it. Next Saturday’s game at Boone Pickens Stadium between the ninth-ranked Cowboys and the 13th-ranked Bulldogs will go down as the biggest season opener in OSU football history. Let me repeat that. The biggest season opener in OSU football history.

How can it not?

First, at No. 9 Oklahoma State is ranked the highest the program has ever been prior to the start of the season. Second, OSU has started a season only eight other times against an opponent ranked as high or higher than Georgia, and none of those game have been played in Stillwater.

And third, we here in Oklahoma aren’t the only ones taking notice of this game.

The contest will be nationally televised by ABC in its prime 2:30 p.m. slot. Sports Illustrated put the Cowboys on their preseason publication cover and picked the Pokes as one of a few sleeper teams to make a national-championship run. And ESPN had OSU coach Mike Gundy on its Bristol, Conn., campus for an entire day to talk about his Cowboys. You don’t get that treatment unless somebody thinks you’re going to be pretty good.

Folks, there are two games that will have the interest of the entire nation as college football starts next Saturday. Virginia Tech versus Alabama is one. Georgia versus Oklahoma State is the other.

This is as big as it gets for a season opener for the Cowboys.

And it’s not unfair to say Saturday’s game dictates the tempo for the entire season.

A win against the Bulldogs and there will be a feeling that the program has arrived.

A win would give OSU the type of national publicity they got a taste of last year when they beat then No. 3 Missouri 28-24 in Columbia.

But this would be hype on a completely different level. Saturday the Cowboys aren’t playing some up-and-comer like the Tigers. Saturday the Dawgs come calling, bringing with them a pedigree (no pun intended) and aura few college football programs can match. Georgia didn’t invent college football, it just seems like it.

If OSU wins Saturday they have every right to thump their chest and do some bragging.

If OSU loses, well then there’s a quite a different story to be told.

There’s no more lofty ranking, no more national hype until Texas comes to town on Halloween and the doubt about being able to beat the nation’s elite creeps in once again.

Expectations for the 2009 Cowboys continue to grow by the hour as Saturday approaches. So to say Saturday is anything less than the biggest season opener in OSU football history just isn’t grasping the truth.

The success or failure of the most anticipated season in Oklahoma State football history could well hinge on the outcome of Saturday’s game with Georgia at Boone Pickens Stadium.

It just doesn’t get any bigger than that.