Editor's note: An excerpt from World sports columnist Dave Sittler's blog Saturday morning from Kansas City before the Big 12 championship: Happy Big Eight days are here again.

It's like one big family reunion in Kansas City, Mo., this weekend. Former Big Eight brothers Oklahoma and Nebraska are playing for a championship, and it definitely seems like old times.

When I awoke this morning in my room on the 17th floor of a downtown hotel, the first thing I heard was a Sooner fan engaged in a duel with a Husker supporter. Their choice of weapons was their car horns: One repeatedly played, "Boomer Sooner," while the other fired back with "There Is No Place Like Nebraska."

I was joined on the elevator ride to the lobby by an OU fan dressed to the nines in his Sooner gear. He said he was from Oklahoma City, and when I asked if he was really going to endure tonight's brutal temperatures, he did a mock shiver and said:

"I was given a chance for free tickets, so I couldn't pass it up."

For more blogs from Dave Sittler and other World writers, go to www.tulsaworld.com