Bedlam Series
Encyclopedia
Bedlam Series |
|
| Oklahoma Sooners Oklahoma Sooners The University of Oklahoma features 19 varsity sports teams. Both men's and women's teams are called the Sooners, a nickname given to the early participants in the land rushes which initially opened the Oklahoma Indian Territory to non-native settlement. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A,... |
Oklahoma State Cowboys Oklahoma State Cowboys Oklahoma State Cowboys are the athletic teams that represent Oklahoma State University. Their mascot is a cowboy named Pistol Pete. Oklahoma State participates in the NCAA's Division I-A and in the Big 12 Conference's South Division. The university's current athletic director is Mike Holder... |
| Originated | 1900 (track and field) 1904 (football) |
The Bedlam Series (officially known for sponsorship purposes as The Oklahoma Farm Bureau
Oklahoma Farm Bureau
The Oklahoma Farm Bureau is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting, protecting, and representing the interests of farmers and ranchers in Oklahoma and is the largest farm organization in the State...
Bedlam Series) refers to the athletics rivalry between the University of Oklahoma
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...
Sooners
Oklahoma Sooners
The University of Oklahoma features 19 varsity sports teams. Both men's and women's teams are called the Sooners, a nickname given to the early participants in the land rushes which initially opened the Oklahoma Indian Territory to non-native settlement. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A,...
and the Oklahoma State University
Oklahoma State University–Stillwater
Oklahoma State University–Stillwater is a land-grant, sun-grant, coeducational public research university located in Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA. OSU was founded in 1890 under the Morrill Act...
Cowboys
Oklahoma State Cowboys
Oklahoma State Cowboys are the athletic teams that represent Oklahoma State University. Their mascot is a cowboy named Pistol Pete. Oklahoma State participates in the NCAA's Division I-A and in the Big 12 Conference's South Division. The university's current athletic director is Mike Holder...
, of the Big 12 Conference
Big 12 Conference
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference of ten schools located in the Central United States, with its headquarters located in Las Colinas, a community in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving...
. Both schools were also members of the Big 8 Conference
Big Eight Conference
The Big Eight Conference, a former NCAA-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football, was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association by its charter member schools: the University of Kansas, University of Missouri, University...
before the formation of the Big 12 Conference in 1996, and both were divisional rivals in the Big 12 South Division prior to 2011.
History
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
Gallagher-Iba Arena
Gallagher-Iba Arena, also known as "The Rowdiest Arena in the Country" and "The Madison Square Garden of the Plains”, is the basketball and wrestling venue at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States...
.
When the Bedlam Series gained Ford
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
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
Old Central
Old Central is the oldest building on the Oklahoma State University campus in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Originally built in 1894, it was the first permanent building on the Oklahoma A&M campus. Old Central's bell clapper once served as a traveling trophy in the Bedlam Series athletics rivalry between...
, 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.
Douglas Cup
Well over 100 years ago, on the windswept plains of Oklahoma Territory, Dr. L.L. Lewis, a veterinary medicine professor, assembled a group of Oklahoma A&MOklahoma State University–Stillwater
Oklahoma State University–Stillwater is a land-grant, sun-grant, coeducational public research university located in Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA. OSU was founded in 1890 under the Morrill Act...
students to participate in the first ever territorial Track and Field meet. Held on May 4, 1900, the event included Alva Normal College
Northwestern Oklahoma State University
Northwestern Oklahoma State University, also known as NWOSU, is a university in Alva, Oklahoma, United States, with satellite campuses in Enid and Woodward. A state university, it offers both bachelor's and master's degrees.-Establishment:...
, Central Normal of Edmond
University of Central Oklahoma
The University of Central Oklahoma, often referred to as UCO, is a coeducational public university located in Edmond, Oklahoma. The university is the third largest in Oklahoma, with almost 18,000 students and approximately 434 full-time and 400 adjunct faculty...
, Kingfisher College
Kingfisher College
-Bringing a College to Kingfisher:Founded by the Rev. Joseph Homer Parker, a Congregationalist Minister who had founded many Congregationalist churches in Canada and the Northeast U.S., and who had also founded the predecessor institution to Wichita State University...
and the University of Oklahoma
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...
, along with OAMC. A local jeweler named Douglas donated a silver cup for prize of the tournament. To everyone's surprise, A&M won the meet and returned to Stillwater
Stillwater, Oklahoma
Stillwater is a city in north-central Oklahoma at the intersection of U.S. 177 and State Highway 51. It is the county seat of Payne County, Oklahoma, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 45,688. Stillwater is the principal city of the Stillwater Micropolitan Statistical...
with the traveling trophy.
In 1901, A&M won for a second time; a third consecutive win would mean the Douglas Cup was theirs to keep. The meet was held on May 23, 1902, and by the end of the day, the Aggies had amassed the most points. The team from Norman
Norman, Oklahoma
Norman is a city in Cleveland County, Oklahoma, United States, and is located south of downtown Oklahoma City. It is part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, Norman was to have 110,925 full-time residents, making it the third-largest city in Oklahoma and the...
filed a protest on the grounds that the pole vault competition had been completed due to darkness, but their protest was overruled. The Douglas Cup belonged to Oklahoma A&M.
The next day, the Sooners held their own vault competition and declared themselves the winner. Several weeks later, the Douglas Cup went missing from its place in a glass case in the chemistry lab. Many students recalled seeing some unfamiliar boys around campus, and students from OU were immediately suspected. A number of A&M students made a surprise trip to Norman and soon returned with the Douglas Cup, reportedly burying it under Old Central for safekeeping.
When excavation was being done for Gundersen Hall ten years later, the trophy was found. Though dented and tarnished from its past, the Douglas Cup was given a place of honor on campus. Today it resides in Heritage Hall, a proud symbol of the tradition that is Oklahoma State University.
Football
The first Bedlam football game was held at Island Park in Guthrie, OklahomaGuthrie, Oklahoma
Guthrie is a city in and the county seat of Logan County, Oklahoma, United States, and a part of the Oklahoma City Metroplex. The population was 9,925 at the 2000 census.Guthrie was the territorial and later the first state capital for 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 kept going backwards and 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, eventually winning 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.
Author Steve Budin, whose father was a New York bookie, has recently publicized the claim that the 1954 Bedlam Game was fixed by mobsters in his book Bets, Drugs, and Rock & Roll (ISBN 1-60239-099-1). Allegedly, the mobsters threatened and paid off a cook to slip laxatives into a soup eaten by many OU Sooner starting players, causing them to fall violently ill in the days leading up to the game. OU was victorious in the end, but their 14-0 win did not cover the 20-point spread they had in their favor. However, many people involved in the 1954 contest do not recall any incident like the one purported by Bodin to have occurred.
Oklahoma currently leads the series 82-16-7.
The series had historically been very lopsided in the Sooners' favor; Oklahoma State has defeated OU twice in a row just three times since World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Game results
| Date | Site | Winning team | Losing team | |Series (OU–OSU–Tie) | Attendance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stillwater | 47–41 | 82–16–7 | 51,164 | |||
| Norman | Oklahoma | 27–0 | 81–16–7 | 85,606 | ||
| Stillwater | 61–41 | 80–16–7 | 49,031 | |||
| Norman | 49–17 | 79–16–7 | 85,238 | |||
| Stillwater | 27–21 | 78–16–7 | 42,819 | |||
| Norman | 42–14 | 77–16–7 | 84,875 | |||
| Stillwater | 38–35 | 76–16–7 | 48,837 | |||
| Norman | 52–9 | 75–16–7 | 84,027 | |||
| Stillwater | 38–28 | 74–16–7 | 48,500 | |||
| Norman | 16–13 | 74–15–7 | 75,537 | |||
| Stillwater | 12–7 | 74–14–7 | 48,500 | |||
| Norman | 44–7 | 73–14–7 | 75,374 | |||
| Stillwater | 41–26 | 72–14–7 | 50,614 | |||
| Norman | 30–7 | 72–13–7 | 72,422 | |||
| Stillwater | 27–17 | 72–12–7 | 51,416 | |||
| Norman | 12–0 | 71–12–7 | 75,004 | |||
| Stillwater | 33–14 | 71–11–7 | 50,116 | |||
| Norman | 31–0 | 70–11–7 | 65,275 | |||
| Stillwater | Tie | 15–15 | 69–11–7 | 50,440 | ||
| Norman | 21–6 | 69–11–6 | 68,778 | |||
| Stillwater | 31–17 | 68–11–6 | 49,800 | |||
| Norman | 37–15 | 67–11–6 | 74,610 | |||
| Stillwater | 31–28 | 66–11–6 | 50,440 | |||
| Norman | 29–10 | 65–11–6 | 75,004 | |||
| Norman | 19–0 | 64–11–6 | 76,022 | |||
| Stillwater | 13–0 | 63–11–6 | 44,000 | |||
| Norman | 24–14 | 62–11–6 | 76,198 | |||
| Stillwater | 21–20 | 61–11–6 | 50,440 | |||
| Norman | 27–9 | 60–11–6 | 76,406 | |||
| Stillwater | 27–3 | 59–11–6 | 51,100 | |||
| Norman | 63–14 | 58–11–6 | 75,681 | |||
| Stillwater | 38–7 | 57–11–6 | 51,453 | |||
| Norman | 62–7 | 56–11–6 | 72,339 | |||
| Stillwater | 61–28 | 55–11–6 | 50,088 | |||
| Norman | 31–24 | 54–11–6 | 72,041 | |||
| Stillwater | 27–7 | 54–10–6 | 49,358 | |||
| Norman | 44–13 | 53–10–6 | 62,619 | |||
| Stillwater | 45-18 | 52–10–6 | 50,964 | |||
| Norman | 38-15 | 51–10–6 | 62,363 | |||
| Stillwater | 58–14 | 50–10–6 | 36,571 | |||
| Norman | 66–6 | 49–10–6 | 60,300 | |||
| Stillwater | 28–27 | 48–10–6 | 41,315 | |||
| Stillwater | 41–7 | 47–10–6 | 38,515 | |||
| Norman | 38–14 | 46–10–6 | 62,038 | |||
| Stillwater | 15–14 | 45–10–6 | 36,581 | |||
| Norman | 17–16 | 45–9–6 | 54,876 | |||
| Stillwater | 21–16 | 45–8–6 | 36,987 | |||
| Norman | 34–10 | 44–8–6 | 50,678 | |||
| Stillwater | 37–6 | 43–8–6 | 35,757 | |||
| Norman | 21–13 | 42–8–6 | 52,598 | |||
| Stillwater | 17–6 | 41–8–6 | 32,381 | |||
| Norman | 17–7 | 40–8–6 | 59,136 | |||
| Stillwater | 7–0 | 39–8–6 | 37,014 | |||
| Norman | 53–6 | 38–8–6 | 52,366 | |||
| Stillwater | 53–0 | 37–8–6 | 36,500 | |||
| Norman | 53–0 | 36–8–6 | 40,182 | |||
| Stillwater | 14–0 | 35–8–6 | 38,000 | |||
| Norman | 42–7 | 34–8–6 | 50,524 | |||
| Stillwater | 54–7 | 33–8–6 | 21,408 | |||
| Norman | 41–6 | 32–8–6 | 33,103 | |||
| Stillwater | 41–14 | 31–8–6 | 28,530 | |||
| Norman | 41–0 | 30–8–6 | 47,937 | |||
| Stillwater | 19–15 | 29–8–6 | 30,000 | |||
| Norman | 21–13 | 28–8–6 | 33,945 | |||
| Stillwater | 73–12 | 27–8–6 | 18,500 | |||
| Norman | 47–0 | 26–8–6 | 33,000 | |||
| Oklahoma City | 28–6 | 26–7–6 | ||||
| Oklahoma City | 22–13 | 26–6–6 | ||||
| Stillwater | Tie | 0–0 | 25–6–6 | |||
| Norman | 19–0 | 25–6–5 | 25,453 | |||
| Norman | 29–27 | 24–6–5 | ||||
| Norman | 41–0 | 23–6–5 | ||||
| Stillwater | 19–0 | 22–6–5 | ||||
| Norman | 16–0 | 21–6–5 | ||||
| Stillwater | 35–13 | 20–6–5 | ||||
| Norman | 25–0 | 19–6–4 | 10,000 | |||
| Stillwater | Tie | 0–0 | 18–6–5 | |||
| Norman | 13–0 | 18–6–4 | ||||
| Stillwater | 7–0 | 18–5–4 | ||||
| Norman | Tie | 0–0 | 18–4–4 | |||
| Stillwater | 7–0 | 18–4–3 | ||||
| Norman | Tie | 0–0 | 18–3–3 | |||
| Stillwater | 46–0 | 18–3–2 | ||||
| Norman | 13–7 | 17–3–2 | ||||
| Stillwater | Tie | 14–14 | 17–2–2 | |||
| Norman | 35–0 | 17–2–1 | ||||
| Stillwater | 6-0 | 16–2–1 | ||||
| Norman | 12–0 | 16–1–1 | ||||
| Stillwater | Tie | 3–3 | 15–1–1 | |||
| Norman | 6–0 | 15–1–0 | ||||
| Stillwater | 36–0 | 14–1–0 | ||||
| Oklahoma City | 33–6 | 13–1–0 | ||||
| Oklahoma City | 27–0 | 12–1 | ||||
| Oklahoma City | 9–0 | 11–1–0 | ||||
| Oklahoma City | 41–7 | 11–0–0 | ||||
| Oklahoma City | 26–7 | 10–0–0 | 5,000 | |||
| Norman | 28–6 | 9–0–0 | ||||
| Stillwater | 7–0 | 8–0–0 | ||||
| Norman | 16–0 | 7–0–0 | ||||
| Stillwater | 22–0 | 6–0–0 | ||||
| Norman | 12–0 | 5–0–0 | ||||
| Stillwater | 18–0 | 4–0–0 | ||||
| Norman | 67–0 | 3–0–0 | ||||
| Stillwater | 2–0 | 2–0–0 | ||||
| Guthrie | 75–0 | 1–0–0 | ||||