The First Baptist Church is generally the most accepted place of worship in both Alabama and Oklahoma. Of course, it is the almighty football that resides at the altar.

If one were searching for the Billy Graham or the Elmer Gantry of college football, you would look no farther than Bud Wilkinson and Bear Bryant, the first men to fully warm the pulpit in both Oklahoma and Alabama.

Both men surely will be smiling down on the scene Saturday in Norman at one of the classic matchups of the season -- OU and 'Bama. The only missing ingredients will be the Bear and the Great White Father.

	Paul "Bear" Bryant won 323 games and six national championships.

For seventeen years, until Wilkinson retired in 1963, the two men were at the head of their class in college football, the Knute Rockne and Pop Warner of their era. And although the men looked and acted as differently as Nixon and Kennedy, they were the best of friends and quick to raise a toast whenever their paths crossed.

"Coach Wilkinson and coach Bryant were always trying to outdo each other, but they were like milk and cereal," Darrell Royal once said. "They just got along better than any two that I knew."

Royal should know. As a graduated OU quarterback, he was dispatched by Wilkinson in 1951 to Lexington to teach the Split-T offense to Bryant. Though Wilkinson was the master of the intricate option offense that would produce winning streaks of 31 and 47 games, he was never afraid to share with his friend, even if it meant a 0-2 record against the Bear.

"That was quite an experience, walking around with the head coach of the University of Kentucky and teaching him our offense," Royal told author Keith Dunnavant in "Coach," his unmatched biography of Bryant. "Coach Bryant had a real curiosity about the game. If somebody had developed something that worked, he wanted to know all about it."

Wilkinson gladly opened the vault for Bryant in spite of the fact that his Kentucky Wildcats had ended Oklahoma's 31-game winning streak on a cold and windy afternoon at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. For days leading to the game, Bryant had agonized over the Split-T offense that provided huge running lanes for All-America back Billy Vessels and Leon Heath. Finally, he decided to scrap his three-man defensive line in favor of a five-man line. He also moved the defensive backs three yards closer to the line of scrimmage, daring quarterback Claude Arnold to beat the Wildcats with his arm. Arnold had a rough day and Kentucky's Babe Parilli threw two touchdown passes to Shorty Jamerson and the Wildcats pulled off a monumental upset 13-7.

Wilkinson's second loss to Bryant came in the January 1, 1963 Orange Bowl. The Sooners couldn't stop Joe Namath, nor could they contain Lee Roy Jordan, losing 17-0.

	Bud Wilkinson coached OU to win streaks of 31 and 47 games.

Bryant was the perhaps the greatest student of the game in the fifties and sixties and Wilkinson was at ease playing the role of professor. The two men often went to dinner with several others, but invariably would wind up sitting together at a distant table, hunkered over a legal pad, drawing up plays. Instead of simple Xs and Os, Wilkinson often brought along what he called the "little men," which were miniature wooden football players that were used to simulate formations.

These sessions became intense during the national football coaches convention when a group that included Bryant and Wilkinson would dust off a few bottles and spend hours talking football theory. A young TV reporter named Pat Summerall was invited into the room one night and remembers both the intellectual debates and the merriment.

"If you couldn't drink, you shouldn't have been in that room," Summerall said. "Those guys could put it away, and if I remember correctly, Bud could out-drink them all."

In the beginning, the group normally included Frank Howard of Clemson, General Robert Neyland of Tennessee, Bryant and Wilkinson. In latter years, Duffy Daughtery of Michigan State, John McKay of USC, Bobby Bowden, then at West Virginia, and Royal of Texas joined the group.

In the mid-sixties, a young assistant coach named Barry Switzer managed to sneak into one of the sessions being held at a Chicago hotel where the coaches' convention was taking place. He wound up serving drinks. But he lacked the daring to introduce himself to Wilkinson, even though Switzer at the time was working on the Oklahoma coaching staff and Wilkinson had moved on to the ABC broadcast booth.

Because of his sharp dress and graceful demeanor, Wilkinson possessed an air of dignity. But that didn't stop Bryant from chiding his friend. Some critics believed that Wilkinson amassed his winning streaks against weaklings from the Big Seven.

After Kentucky's victory in the 1951 Sugar Bowl, Bryant told Wilkinson, "I guess I just showed you that the big fellers of the SEC are a little tougher than the little fellers from that Big Seven Conference."

Bryant then stood in awe as Wilkinson walked gracefully into the Kentucky dressing room and gave a brief speech, congratulating the winning team. At the time, Bryant was known as the most ungracious loser in college football. But from that day forward, he didn't mind repeating Wilkinson's gesture. Some say that Wilkinson's demeanor helped bring out the kinder, gentler side of Bryant.

For sure, they were men of different codes. Wilkinson came from a well-to-do family, attended an upper echelon military school and learned the game from the rigidly disciplined Bernie Bierman, who was often compared to a Prussian general. Bryant grew up in abject poverty in Moro Bottom, Arkansas and didn't own a pair of shoes until he was thirteen. Bryant once conducted a preseason hell camp in the broiling heat of West Texas, sending his Texas A&M team through four-hour practices without water breaks and running off 76 players in a period of ten days. Wilkinson's practices normally lasted ninety minutes with little or no contact.

Walking the sideline at Owen Field on Saturday, Wilkinson would be dressed nattily in the gray flannel suit, his silver hair glistening in the warm September sun. Depending on the year, Bryant would don either the dark fedora or hounds-tooth hat. And in that first fit of anger, the hat would be the first to go.

Look closely Saturday. You might just see the Bear and the Great White Father. Certainly, you will feel their presence.

Jim Dent is the author of "Junction Boys" and "The Undefeated" and is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. "Junction Boys" will be ESPN Original Entertainment's second original, made-for-television movie. The premiere is scheduled for Saturday, December 14 at 9:00 p.m. ET on ESPN.