Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy didn't mince words when asked about the future of the "Bedlam" rivalry with Oklahoma.
"With all the talk from administration and that Oklahoma State has to do this and that [to save Bedlam], all Oklahoma had to do was not go to the SEC," Gundy told reporters at Big 12 Media Days on Wednesday. "So it is what it is. We can cut right to the chase. I don't think it is going to [resume] based on the schedule. And everyone has to realized that it didn't have to happen if [Oklahoma] didn't change leagues."
The two in-state foes aren't scheduled to play again after 2023 as the Sooners prepare to move to the SEC the following season. According to Gundy, scheduling logistics will likely prevent a regular-season meeting between the two teams anytime soon.
"We have nine conference game [in the Big 12], and I think through 15 years, we are scheduled all the way up [in non-conference]," Gundy said Wednesday. "We are [fully booked] for the most part, and we have Power Five teams. And I'll go back to this: Oklahoma State is not going change what we do because Oklahoma chose to go to the SEC. They need to change what they do, because they are the ones that made their minds up to go to the SEC.
Gundy's comments come roughly a month after Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione expressed optimism that the Bedlam football series would eventually come back. Castiglione cited "good conversations" Oklahoma State AD Chad Weiberg as the two tried to find a path for the football series to resume at a later date.
But Gundy, in a separate interview Wednesday with ESPN, suggested Castiglione and other Oklahoma administrators are the reason for the game's likely hiatus.
"[Joe] Castiglione is a friend of mine, but when he and [Oklahoma president Joseph Harroz, Jr.] decided to go to the SEC, they took Bedlam with them," Gundy told ESPN. "Do I like it? No. I like tradition. I like Big 12, I liked the old Big Eight. I like rivalries. I like the things in college football that have been around forever, but that's not going to matter anymore. All those things are history."
The Sooners and Cowboys have met 117 times dating back to 1904. They were long foes in the defunct Big Eight Conference before its members and four schools from the defunct Southwest Conference joined forces to create the Big 12 in the mid-1990s. Oklahoma owns a 91-19-7 advantage in the rivalry, including a 28-13 victory over the Cowboys last year.
