Written by Matt Zemek at Bloguin
The good old days often refer to a luminous past which can never be fully recaptured.
For the Bedlam football series, the good old days are right now.
Oklahoma and Oklahoma State had existed in a Big Brother-Little Brother relationship for many years. The Sooners almost always set the standard in the Big Eight and then in the early years of the Big 12. Oklahoma State typically tried to spoil the party. Such was the case even in 2008, when Oklahoma needed to beat Oklahoma State to forge the three-way tie in the Big 12 South which ultimately elevated the Sooners (unfairly, but that’s another discussion for another time) to the BCS National Championship Game against Florida.
In 2010, the winds of change started to blow through Bedlam, and in the subsequent years, the nature of this rivalry has become even more complicated… and consequential. There’s never been a better time to behold Bedlam as an outside observer. There’s never been a better time to watch this series in Oklahoma for state officials or clergy who must govern or minister to alums and students of both schools.
In that 2010 contest, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma played for the Big 12 South championship, in the last season with a split-division Big 12 and the conference championship game the league left behind in 2011 and beyond. Oklahoma State entered that game with a 10-1 record, a major player on the scene. Relative to the previous 10 seasons — in which it had won a national title and played for all the Tostitos on three other occasions, all while winning the Big 12 six times — Oklahoma had a 2010 campaign which was solid, but not as spectacular as Bob Stoops’s biggest years with the Crimson and Cream.
Bedlam had become a two-team fight for riches and glories beyond in-state bragging rights. It wasn’t just OU which was playing for a league title and a signature January bowl game.
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