Oklahoma football: Sooners’ Bedlam win streak in jeopardy
By Chip Rouse
The Oklahoma football rivalry with Oklahoma State is almost as long standing as the Sooners Red River rivalry with Texas.
Related Story. Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State: Best Bedlam game I never saw. light
Only one game separates the two. The Sooners and Oklahoma State will meet on the gridiron for the 116th time on Saturday in what the two in-state rivals refer to as Bedlam. The OU-Texas rivalry is only one game longer (117).
Oklahoma heads to Stillwater this weekend riding a six-game winning streak over Oklahoma State, including the last four times the two teams have played at OSU’s Boone Pickens Stadium.
Unlike those previous four trips to Stillwater, however, and the vast majority of the 116 other times these two teams have met, Oklahoma State is the favorite (by a four-point margin). The Cowboys match the Sooners 10-1 overall record, with their only loss to Iowa State in a game they easily could have won, and rank 7th this week in the College Football Playoff rankings. OU sits three spots lower at No. 10.
Since the 2000 season, both teams have been ranked coming into this game 10 times. Three of those times, Oklahoma was the lower-ranked team — twice in Stillwater and once in Norman. But here’s the kicker: The Sooners won all 10 games, including the ones in which Oklahoma State was ranked higher than OU.
The Sooners have an .831 winning percentage against their in-state rivals (90-18) and seven games have ended in ties. Since the turn of the century, 16 Bedlam matchups have been played on the final weekend of the regular season, often with a lot at stake, as is the case again this season. Oklahoma has prevailed in 12 of those 16 season-ending games.
OU is 18-4 against Oklahoma State since Bob Stoops was named head coach of the Sooners in 1999. Stoops was 14-4 versus OSU, with 16 of those games being the final game of the regular season. Lincoln Riley has never lost to the Cowboys in the now seven seasons he has been in Norman.
As far as legendary Oklahoma head coaches Bud Wilkinson and Barry Switzer are concerned, Wilkinson’s OU teams were a perfect 17-0 against then Oklahoma A&M, and Switzer won 15 of the 16 games his teams played against the Sooners’ in-state rivals.
The rivalry series between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State began early in the last century, in 1904. The Sooners won that inaugural game 75-0 and came away the victors in the first 11 games in the series. Oklahoma also has put together winning streaks of 19 and 15 games in this series. Stoops had an eight-game winning streak over the Cowboys during his OU coaching tenure.
A win by Oklahoma on Saturday would punch the Sooners’ ticket to their fifth consecutive Big 12 Championship and a rematch with Oklahoma State. A second win over the Cowboys would earn the Sooners’ their seventh straight Big 12 crown.
On the other hand, a loss on Saturday by the Sooners…Well, we’re not going to go there right now.