The entire state of Oklahoma is now months away from experiencing what Texas went through for a decade.
Welcome to conference realignment hell, brought to you by ESPN; it’s the popular “game show” where the rivalries and tradition that built college football are traded out in favor of Oklahoma versus Kentucky, Nebraska against Rutgers, and coming soon, UCLA at Maryland.
After Nov. 4, when Oklahoma plays at Oklahoma State, Bedlam will be bordered up.
It is appropriate that one of the definitions for the word Bedlam is “an institution for the care of mentally ill people.”
This past week at Big 12 Media Days in Arlington, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy reiterated that this series is over. It’s over because Oklahoma is leaving the Big 12 for the SEC.
This is not some One America News Network rant by Coach Gundy; he has every right to feel jilted by a school that acted not in the best interests of the state of Oklahoma, which as a public institution receiving tax dollars should be high on the mission statement.
A similar scenario played out when Texas A&M left the Big 12 for the SEC, back in 2012. Or when Nebraska left the Big 12 for the Big 10 one year earlier. Texas is a part of this, too.
A&M’s exit ended one of the most celebrated, anticipated and storied rivalries in any sport: Texas versus Texas A&M.
Oklahoma and Oklahoma State doesn’t have the pull of Aggies and Horns, but it’s still one of those games that people will follow even if they have no rooting interest.
Give it time. Bedlam will come back. Because money.
The Aggies insisted they no longer needed the Tea Sips; that they were better off without their liberal elite rivals from Sixth Street.
Now UT is heading to the SEC, Texas v. Texas A&M is coming back, and the first ones celebrating its return are the same ones who partied when it ended.
Expect OU and OSU to follow a similar pattern. When the respective athletic departments need an infusion of cash to cover the costs of the new glow-in-the-dark bidets for the football locker room, both schools will agree to be friends again. They always do.
“I think the earliest (Oklahoma State) could schedule it is 2030,” Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione said last week at Big 12 Media Days.
More like 2029.
Oklahoma State’s non-conference schedule looks secure through the end of 2028. There are some vacancies in 2029, 2030 and beyond.
Read through Castiglione’s comments, and he sounds like he would be open to starting this series again. He also sounds like a man who knows he won’t be the AD when those discussions occur.
Gundy, however, left zero room for such a discussion; there were no “maybes,” or “in the future,” or “who knows?”
He sounds like Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self did after Missouri left the Big 12 for the SEC, also in 2012.
Self, like most Big 12 coaches, was *%%$##!! hot with the league for failing to keep the conference intact. Arguably the most powerful person in Kansas since The Wizard, Self flexed and a rivalry that began before the actual Civil War ended.
It was over until both sides agreed passing on the cash was stupid.
The Kansas/Missouri basketball rivalry returned, in December of 2021. The two schools agreed to a six-game series that will likely be extended well beyond the original deal.
Kansas will play Missouri in football beginning in 2025 and 2026; it will return again in 2031 and ‘32.
Expect Oklahoma and Oklahoma State to follow the jagged, petty, path.
No one at Oklahoma State is celebrating the end of this rivalry; they’re not that stupid. The people at Oklahoma U. are aware that their brothers and sisters in Stillwater need that relationship more than the Sooners.
Also, ask any Sooners fan and they will all agree they love playing OKSt.
A&M didn’t need any direct affiliation with Texas the way T. Boone State does with OU. Ask any Aggie and they all agree one of their most cherished college experiences was watching TU play their Aggies at Kyle Field.
It sounds like the way the negotiations between Texas and Oklahoma went with the SEC (and ESPN) that the Aggies had no say in the matter.
The Aggies have no choice but to make the best of it, and will not complain when the checks come as a result of again being linked to UT and Oklahoma.
What we witnessed with UT and A&M as well as KU and MU, and to a lesser extent Nebraska and Oklahoma, is that people need to leave.
The people in power at Oklahoma State, not just Mike Gundy, will have to move on before there is any chance of Bedlam returning.
But it will return.
They always do.
