Bedlam Series
| First meeting | 1900 (track and field) 1904 (football) |
|---|---|
| First meeting | November 6, 1904 Oklahoma 75, Oklahoma A&M 0 |
|---|---|
| Latest meeting | December 3, 2016 Oklahoma 38, Oklahoma State 20 |
| Next meeting | 2017 |
| Statistics | |
| Meetings total | 111 |
| All-time series | Oklahoma leads, 86–18–7 |
| Largest victory | Oklahoma, 75–0 (1904) |
| Longest win streak | Oklahoma, 19 (1946–1964) |
| Current win streak | Oklahoma, 2 (2015–present) |
The Bedlam Series refers to the athletics rivalry between the University of Oklahoma Sooners and the Oklahoma State University Cowboys of the Big 12 Conference. Both schools were also members of the Big 8 Conference before the formation of the Big 12 Conference in 1996, and both were divisional rivals in the Big 12 South Division prior to 2011.
The Bedlam Series is, like most other intrastate rivalries, a rivalry that goes beyond one or two sports. Both schools also have rivalries with other schools, though most of those rivalries are limited to one or two sports at the most. The rivalry is all the more intense since their games often decide the conference championship.
While the football and basketball games stand today as the marquee events in the Bedlam Series, the term "Bedlam" actually began with the rivalry between the schools' prestigious wrestling programs, more particularly the raucous crowds that attended the matches held at Oklahoma State's Gallagher-Iba Arena.
When the Bedlam Series gained Ford and the Bank of Oklahoma as corporate sponsors, the series became much more formalized. A points system was adopted in order to award a winner of the all athletic competitions combined between the two schools. A crystal bell trophy is awarded to individual Bedlam game winners (such as football), in addition to a trophy for the overall series champion for that year. The "Bedlam Bell" is modeled after the bell clapper in Old Central, the oldest building on Oklahoma State's campus. For a time, the actual bell clapper was a traveling trophy for the two schools, until the popularity of this tradition waned.
The first Bedlam football game was held at Island Park, now known as Mineral Wells Park, in Guthrie, Oklahoma. It was a cold, and very windy day with the temperatures well below the freezing mark. At one moment in the game when the Oklahoma A&M Aggies were punting, the wind carried the ball backwards behind the kicker. If the Oklahoma A&M squad recovered the ball it would be a touchback and if the University of Oklahoma squad recovered it, it would be a touchdown. The ball rolled down a hill into the half-frozen creek. Since a touchdown was at stake, members of both teams dove into the icy waters to recover the ball. A member of the OU team came out with the ball and downed it for a touchdown. OU won the game, 75–0. Though this was not the source of the name "Bedlam", the scene was clearly an apt beginning for the Bedlam Series in football.
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