Sadly, I suspect Mike Gundy is correct about this.
Ahead of the 116th edition of Bedlam, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy not only suggested that Saturday’s meeting between the seventh-ranked Cowboys and No. 10 Oklahoma could be the last in Stillwater for quite a while, but revealed pessimism about the rivalry continuing on at all after the Sooners leave for the SEC.
“I don’t think it’s a realistic thing that it’s going to happen based on the business side of Power 5 conference football, the Big 12 or the SEC,” Gundy said Monday. “That’s just my opinion on it. I could be wrong. I’m not getting that from anybody.”
Gundy cited finances, the future of a 12-team Big 12 and nonconference schedules planned years in advance among the reasons he doubts the football rivalry that dates back to 1904 will go on with OU no longer in-conference.
“I don’t think it will (continue),” Gundy said.
It’s another decision in a long line of decisions made by the people running the sport to reject the regional passions that have driven college football’s popularity in favor of a more national focus manufactured by conference realignment and postseason expansion.
It pains me to say this, but there is one way I can see to maintain the rivalry, and that would be for the SEC not to go to a nine-game conference schedule. Bedlam could then join the other existing non-conference rivalry games that Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and South Carolina already play. But I don’t think that would be as good for business.
Get The Picture 
You can’t have a 16 team schedule and an 8 game schedule. Even 9 is dumb with that many teams.
Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. SEC is going to learn that lesson painfully I think.
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In conference won’t be any better. Expect the UGA v AU annual game to go away, too. I guess all the things we love about college football have to be sacrificed first so the suits at Disney can make more money. Wait until you have to pay $100 a month for ESPN+ to see a UGA game on tv. Disney is doing what they do best: tugging at your heartstrings to access your wallet.
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They can play it if they want to. I imagine both leagues will have 9 game schedules. That leaves one spot for an OOC rivalry game, another FBS OOC game, and a true cupcake. Oklahoma State played Boise, Tulsa and Missouri State with their current 9-game round robin schedule. They can find a spot for Bedlam if they really want it.
If we lose the Auburn game as a yearly event so Texas and TAMU get their annual game back, I’m going to be pissed beyond belief.
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Auburn doesn’t want any part of it. That’ll be why.
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AU every other year will have to work. Losing Mizzou every year might be worth it.
And sure, OKST/OU can keep this game if they want to.
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Losing the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry as an annual game would be a travesty.
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Moving it from November was a travvesty
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Precisely right, EE. 9 SEC, 1 OOC rival, 1 OOC “good” game, 1 cupcake. And don’t fool yourself, having Vandy and Florida in conference is 2 more cupcakes a year or every other year.
Just gotta have big enough balls in the sack to do it.
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We won’t lose it if we do the 3-6 division-less format. Moving Alabama and AU to the East (Mizzou to the West) and playing a 7 game fixed division schedule is hogwash IMO. I can’t imagine charter members LSU, Ole Miss and Miss State would be cool being shifted to the NewSouthWest Conference. 7 of 10 charter members in one division ?
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I know. The 3-6 format seems to be the right way to go. It all comes down to what Mickey wants. If Disney wants the Auburn game as an annual game, we’ll get it. If not, I’m betting we won’t.
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UGA AU hasn’t been all that close for the last 20 years, I think that is not in our favor…AU wants out, just like UF wants out vs LSU.
It will be interesting where the scheduling goes..I’m guessing more than a few will be unhappy.
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I have never heard an Auburn fan say they want out of the series with Georgia.
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It is more about feelings and egos than anything else. Not quite on the level of Texas but in the general direction. Also, the series record is horribly lopsided. OSU should be glad to get out of it.
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Doing away with these games may bring them profits in the short term. In the long term this may actually reduce interest in CFB. At least the kind of interest from passionate fans that has driven the sport and gotten them to this point in the first place.
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On the bright side, OU and Vandy gonna be thing soon.
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After the way Kansas has played Texas the last few years, a Texas-Vandy rivalry would feel just like old times when they get to the SEC.
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Don’t worry, when SEC expands to 20 teams we’ll bring OK State in.
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Really not looking forward to a 16 team SEC. Barf.
Too many of these games feel soulless.
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Exactly and this an 8 game SEC schedule with traditional rivalries remaining to make business sense.
I am hoping UGA wins it all this year even more so than normal as I don’t know how long I will be watching the sport. Auburn and Florida must be annual games.
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The Missouri game is the biggest waste of time every year, even when they’re competitive. Who gives a rip about playing Missouri? OU and Texas are at least OU and Texas, and it will be fun to play I guess, but still – who gives a rip about watching Mississippi play either one of them? I love watching Ole Miss play LSU because of the history of the rivalry, but some contrived new conference matchup? No thanks.
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It sucks and it’s stupid. Same for Texas-Texas A&M, Missouri-Kansas, OU-Nebraska (though they did play this year) and many others. The complete conversion to NFL-Lite is almost complete. Once we get a 16 team playoff, it’s over.
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I read here it was going to be over when the players started getting paid. I’m not sure what to believe anymore.
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Same with the transfer portal… Tenn seems to be okay.
Speaking of the portal, D’wan is back in again. When you can’t cut it at Temple…
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I was never in that boat about paying players, but losing the traditional rivalries (especially ours) will suck the joy out of it for me.
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IF we could play Bama or AU every year, I would be cool with that…I know many disagree.
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Dude could have thrown some serious gas and said “though ou is moving to the sec, osu will continue to schedule future cupcake games by keeping ou in those slots”…
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BYU and Coastal Carolina scheduled a game and four days later, BYU was in Conway, South Carolina playing football. If Mike Gundy and Oklahoma State wanted to play the game against Oklahoma, they’d play it. It may be difficult, but it can happen. They don’t want to, and this is the way to cancel the series and the losses and save face. Georgia Tech should be so lucky.
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Disney didn’t learn from killing NASCAR. Just because you are the smartest guy in the room, doesn’t mean you have enough common sense to use your big brain.
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Might have killed NASCAR, but I’m sure they made a ton on that first contract. And that’s the only thing that matters: will THIS contract be profitable. To them, this isn’t tending to soil and crops, reaping what you sow, and tending to something good and valuable for the long term; it’s strip mining…. it’s chopping the tops off of beautiful mountains so it’s a little cheaper to mine them. They laugh in the face of “lessons learned” from other ruined sports.
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Coach…other than pouting and acting childlike the way all of Texas is, can you explain why you can’t keep Bedlam on the schedule?
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Just to put a devil’s advocate on the negativity, I’m kind of looking forward to the additions. Didn’t we very recently get excited about non-conference additions of Texas and OU to the UGA schedule ? But now it’s nothing but sadzz ?! This will work out beautifully if they have the balls to do 3 permanents and 6 rotators. There’s no way on God’s Green Earth that UGA is not getting Florida and Auburn as permanents in that deal. Absolutely none. Those two and Alabama-Auburn, Alabama-Tennessee are literally the first markup on the draft paper to which everything else hinges.
In fact, we’d probably get South Carolina as the third, because they’ll demand us as a must-have. Am I supposed to get the sadzz about some combo of Kentucky, Tennessee and Vanderbilt being relegated to every other year ? Yes, Kentucky and Vanderbilt would be a parting with long history, but I’m just not that worked up.
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We played Ole Miss every year from 1966-2002 (probably started as a result of Tulane leaving the SEC). I personally hated losing that game, but generally speaking, both fanbases at-large carried on without much of a peep.
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Exactly…we survived…I too would like to see there other SEC teams more than we do now.
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Another positive spin on a 3-6 format…..the return of the aforementioned 36yr annual fling with Ole Miss to every other year (or 2 in 4) instead of every 7 or 8. Also, you now get charter SEC members LSU, Alabama and Mississippi State way more than you ever have. Which is how it should be. Otherwise, you may as well concede that we’ve always been “a conference in name only” as infrequently as we played some of them, and that our recent bemoaning of this phenomenon is actually nothing new.
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Moving it from November was a travvesty
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