So, back to Bedlam . . . .Bedlam football will have to die before its keepers realize what was lost
Berry Tramel
Oklahoman
Sept. 20, 2022Bedlam football is not dead yet.
I don’t know if that’s good news or bad, for the long-term survival of the series. In the college football funhouse, you see more resurrections of rivalries than you do healings.
Maybe Bedlam has to go away before the keepers of the flame (shame?) finally come to their senses.
The latest chapter in the Bedlam saga came Tuesday when Oklahoman Brett McMurphy of the Action Network reported that athletic directors Chad Weiberg (OSU) and Joe Castiglione (OU) see little hope in the rivalry continuing after the Sooners leave the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, no later than 2025.
That’s not news, really. That’s what everybody has been saying for the last 15 months. Particularly in Stillwater, there’s little sense of fighting to keep alive what has become as big of a deal nationally as locally.
But you never know when someone will be inspired to counter the broken trust of conference realignment or the pettiness of hard feelings or blind devotion to a rotten scheduling system.
Never know when someone might talk to the right person.
OSU's Malcolm Rodriguez sacks OU quarterback Caleb Williams in the 2021 Bedlam game.Like West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons, whose Mountaineers on Sept. 1 played Pittsburgh in the Backyard Brawl, a grand old rivalry that somehow went dormant for 11 years.
“I thought it was good for us,” Lyons said. “I thought it was good for Pitt. I think it’s great for college football.”
The West Virginia-Pitt game was the 105th in the series history and drew the largest crowd in Pittsburgh sports history, 70,622. Yes, larger than any Steelers or Pirates game.
Or maybe someone will talk to new Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, who doesn’t know Bedlam from Bedrock but was hired to market the conference to networks and corporations.
Yormark has a cult following among OSU personnel for his initial performance, but no way can Yormark like the idea of Bedlam’s demise.
He’s out there selling the Big 12 to ESPN, Fox and whoever else, and suddenly he hears the brightest bulb on the tree might be extinguished.
An annual Bedlam game means whoever holds the Big 12 rights are assured of getting the Sooners at least once every other year. That’s no big deal to ESPN, which will hold the SEC rights, but that’s a plum to any other network.
Don’t buy into Bedlam’s prowess? ESPN’s College GameDay, the iconic Saturday morning pregame show, has been to Stillwater six times over the years. Five of those games were Bedlam. OU has hosted eight GameDays; two were Bedlam.
That’s seven Bedlam GameDays in total. That matches OU-Texas and Ohio State-Michigan.
In Norman, the Sooners at least talk a good Bedlam.
“We’ll continue to remain open-minded about finding an opportunity for our football programs to meet,” Castiglione said. “It just makes sense. It makes sense. Regardless of how anybody feels about our move to the SEC, it makes sense for the two universities to continue to play or have competition in all of our sports.
“So we’ll continue to talk about that and find a way to make it happen. When opportunities develop down the road in football, we’ll find a way to make that happen. So we’ll see.”
In OSU’s defense, the Cowboys have far fewer non-conference openings in the future. OU’s future non-conference schedules became Swiss cheese when contracts with Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana State were canceled, since those four Southern schools soon will be conference mates with OU.
OSU’s schedule is mostly full going out at least a decade. And in the self-constructed scheduling model of only one Power Five Conference opponent per year, the Cowboys are full 13 of the next 15 years, with vacancies only in 2030 and 2031.
Of course, that’s the root of the problem. The idea that modern teams should be prudent and schedule at least two lower-caliber non-conference opponents every year.
So we’re living through a September where the likes of Central Michigan, Texas-El Paso, Kent State and Arkansas-Pine Bluff came to Norman or Stillwater.
And future Septembers will bring Central Arkansas, South Alabama, Arkansas State and Southern Methodist in 2023; Temple and Tulane in 2024; Tulsa and Illinois State in 2025; Murray State, New Mexico and UTEP in 2026; Western Illinois and Tulsa in 2017; Southeastern Louisiana and Temple in 2018; Tulsa in 2029; Tulsa in 2030; Tulsa in 2031; and Tulsa in 2033.
The Tulsa serieses are honorable, for both the eight scheduled with OSU and two with OU. In-state, often competitive, understandable.
But those other games are an affront to fans. NFL-style exhibitions that are much more theatrical performances than athletic contests. Nothing but financial endeavors. Part scripted (professional wrestling) and part corrupt (boxing) and part little league (one-sided).
OU, OSU and most of big-time college football have built financial models that require more home games than road games.
Only a few revolutionaries have fought the system. Georgia, West Virginia, Florida. Occasionally a few others.
"From my perspective, the only way we would do that is if that was what everyone in the Power Five was doing," Weiberg said. "Otherwise, you’re putting your program at a potential competitive disadvantage. I know a few do that occasionally. West Virginia did it this year. But until that becomes the standard, I don’t imagine either one of us will do that as a rule.
And when realignment occurs, vocal fan bases lose their minds and say good riddance. Don’t need them, say Sooners. We’ll be fine without them, say Cowboys.
Except in a few years, watching Temple and Murray State, or even Mississippi State and Central Florida, fans will remember those wild Bedlam games – 37-33, 48-47, 62-52, 38-35 in overtime, 51-48 in overtime, 47-41, 61-41 – and look back longingly at what had become the best annual sporting event in the state.
Texas A&M-Texas died. So did Texas-Arkansas. And OU-Nebraska. And Kansas-Missouri. And Brigham Young-Utah. And Pitt-West Virginia. And Penn State-Pitt.
Periodic, temporary resumptions have ensued for some. But college football is worse off.
“Bedlam … that’s a great college football game,” West Virginia’s Lyons said. “Great atmosphere. Realignment has shifted scheduling. But as college football leaders, I think it’s our job to fit as much as you can in non-conference schedules.”
Not enough college football leaders believe like Lyons. Or act upon their beliefs.
But Castiglione at least retains some optimism.
“I believe in the long run we will find a way,” Joe C. said. “I do understand some of the difficulty in the earlier years, because of the non-conference schedules that have been built.
“We may have a little more flexibility than they do, and that may be the reason why they aren’t really interested or able. It could be both. I’ve had cordial conversations with Chad Weiberg about this. I understand the logistical challenges, too.”
The logistical challenges are this. Bedlam might have to die for its keepers to realize what will be missed when it’s gone.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com.
