When the Oklahoma football team visits Stillwater, Oklahoma, in October for the 118th meeting between in-state rivals Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, it could be the final meeting in the historic series.
That’s the way Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy sees things, anyway.
The issue was very much top of mind with reporters again this week during Big 12 Media Days in Arlington, Texas, with this being the final appearance for both Oklahoma and Texas at the annual preseason gathering of Big 12 head coaches and player representatives along with the media.
Gundy, earlier in the spring, even went as far as to question why Oklahoma and Texas should be invited to attend the event, given that they would no longer be part of the Big 12 as of the summer of 2024.
OU’s Brent Venables: “I’m not in control of whether we play Oklahoma State. I love rivalry games. Oklahoma & Oklahoma State have played for over 100 years. Oklahoma has been dang good in those games. I’d love to play the game. We’re gonna play the schedule they put in front of…
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) July 13, 2023
“The new commissioner, I mean, honestly, if I was him, I wouldn’t let Oklahoma and Texas in any (business) meetings,” the OSU head coach said a year ago, interestingly at Big 12 Media Days shortly after it had been announced that the two schools were leaving the Big 12 to become members of the SEC.
“I say that jokingly,” Gundy said. But I mean if you’re strategically in a business meeting, if it’s two cellphone companies, I don’t want somebody from their company (in a meeting with) my company.”
It sounds to me like Gundy, perhaps like a lot of folks associated with Oklahoma State University, harbor some hurt feelings about OU switching conference allegiance and leaving OSU behind.
While Gundy is adamant that Oklahoma is the bad guy in this story and the entire reason that the century-old Bedlam football series may come to an end, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Cowboys’ longtime football head coach, assistant and player might be especially glad to see Oklahoma taking its game elsewhere.
As a rivalry series, Bedlam has hardly lived up to the name. The OU-OSU series has been totally one-sided for a very long while. The Sooners have won 78 percent of the games in the series with a 91-19-1 overall record.
Gundy’s record against Oklahoma hasn’t been much better — in fact, it’s been exactly the same, with OU winning 78 percent of the time it played a Gundy-coached Oklahoma State team.
Mike Gundy is just 3-15 as a head coach against Oklahoma. OSU lost all four games while he was a player and quarterback at Oklahoma State, and the Cowboys were 2-6-1 versus the Sooners while he was an assistant and associate head coach between 1990-95 and 2001-04. Gundy has won 67 percent of his games as the Cowboys’ head coach, but only 17 percent of those wins have come against the in-state rivals from Norman.
And here’s one more thing for the OSU head coach to tuck away for posterity. At best, Oklahoma State is the Sooners’ third-best football rival behind Texas and Nebraska. Oh, and by the way, the rivalry series with Nebraska did not die on the vine when the Cornhuskers bailed out of the Big 12 for the Big Ten. OU played the Huskers in each of the past two seasons and has future games scheduled in 2029 and 2030.
As the Sooner slogan says, “There’s only one Oklahoma.”