Bye-Bye, Bedlam: Oklahoma, Oklahoma State Rivalry Faces Uncertain Future

Eskimo Joe’s opened its doors on West Elm Street in Stillwater, Okla., in July 1975, the brainchild of a couple of new Oklahoma State graduates. The bar was right next to campus and a short walk from the football stadium, quickly establishing it as the social anchor before and after the Cowboys play.

Nearly 50 years and an untold number of sold T-shirts later, it’s still the landmark game-day location in an isolated college town. Clemson has the Esso Club, Oklahoma State has Eskimo Joe’s. Its fame has extended far beyond state borders.

Saturday, doors will open at 9 a.m. and breakfast cheese fries will be sold until 11. Drinks will flow. Trash will be talked. And by mid-afternoon, everyone will migrate from Eskimo Joe’s to Boone Pickens Stadium for the last Bedlam Series game.

“Kind of a sad thing,” allows Stan Clark, one of the founding owners of Eskimo Joe’s and still the proprietor today.

After Saturday, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are no longer scheduled to play each other in a football series that began in 1904, when Oklahoma was still a territory and not yet a state. The 118th meeting is the final one for the foreseeable future. Bye-bye, Bedlam.

The Sooners are off to the Southeastern Conference. The Cowboys remain in the Big 12. Their paths may cross again on the gridiron, but nobody knows when. This is the cultural cost of college sports realignment. Lost rivalries. Disposable traditions. What the fans care about can be rendered unimportant in the soulless pursuit of more revenue. A game that is cussed and discussed 12 months a year in the state will be a thing of the past.

“It’s difficult for everyone,” Clark says. “It’s just been so much fun. It’s so intense. I will miss all the fervor around it. There’s not another game that Oklahoma State fans are as passionate about.”

A resolutely upbeat septuagenarian, Clark isn’t one to wade into recrimination over the end of Bedlam. Like everyone else, he didn’t see it coming when news broke in July 2021 that Oklahoma was joining Texas in bolting to the SEC—“I was just dumbfounded, like, ‘WHAT?’”—but he’s not here to blame the Sooners for following the money [and the Longhorns] elsewhere.

“OU’s thing has been so good for the state of Oklahoma,” Clark says. “They’re a national brand and one of the things Oklahoma is known for. When it’s time to kick off, I certainly want the Cowboys to win. I’m as riled up as anybody. But I think we could respect and appreciate each other more.”

That sounds good, but those high-minded ideals were not passed along to everyone, especially now, at rivalry’s end. Chris’ University Spirit, a popular Oklahoma State apparel store in Stillwater, is selling shirts with the face of Cowboys mascot Pistol Pete that say, “Well, Bye,” echoing a dismissive social media meme from the movie Tombstone.

For Pokes fans, the ones being left in this divorce, a “good riddance” tone is understandable but probably a bit forced. The Big 12 is viable long term, which puts Oklahoma State in a far better position than, say, Oregon State and Washington State in the dismantled Pac-12, but life will be different without the Bedlam football game. (The schools likely will still compete in other sports, including wrestling, which actually gave birth to the Bedlam moniker.)

The fact that the football series still means as much as it does to Oklahoma State fans is a testament to some form of resilience. Because this is as one-sided as any of the old in-state rivalries.

Oklahoma has won 91 of the 117 meetings to date. Oklahoma State has won 19. There have been seven ties. It took nine games for the Cowboys to even score on the Sooners, and it wasn’t until the 12th meeting—on Thanksgiving day in 1917—that Oklahoma State won one. From ’46 to ’64, Oklahoma won every Bedlam game.

The Cowboys have never won three in a row and have beaten the Sooners consecutively only five times. They are eternally the plucky little guy who picks a fight with the bully at the bar, keeps getting knocked down and keeps getting up asking for more.

This year, the little guy looks like he packs a punch. After starting 2–2, Oklahoma State has reeled off four straight wins. Running back Ollie Gordon has shot into the Heisman Trophy race, leading the nation in rushing and compiling 553 yards in the last two games alone. The Pokes are also rested, coming off an open date, while Oklahoma (7–1) has staggered to one shaky win and one upset loss since beating Texas in the Red River game.

And if the last Bedlam game needed one more jolt of juice, program icons Mike Gundy and Brian Bosworth supplied it this week. Gundy, the longtime coach of the Pokes and former star quarterback at the school, played against Boz, the hell-raising linebacker for the Sooners, back in the 1980s.

This week at his press conference, Gundy opined on the state of things then vs. now: “It was a rivalry then, right? Bosworth spit in my face. I spit in his face. The summer before my sophomore year, I would go to parties in Oklahoma City, and they would say Bosworth and [Paul] Migliazzo and some of those [Oklahoma] guys were here.

“So I had to make a decision, were we going to have confrontation there, and who was with me? Those guys, I could kick them in the shin and run like hell, but I’m not dumb. I mean, what kind of a frame of mind was Brian going to be in at that point? I don’t know. Had he taken a ‘Vitamin C’ and had a few drinks? Well, he might not be a guy you want to talk to at that point.

“It was a rivalry then. Now it’s not as much anymore, unfortunately, because of the way it is. But it’s a very important game.”

Bosworth took Gundy’s bait and responded via social media. This was his post on X, formerly Twitter: “Guess what Coach G..Bedlam is still a rivalry & BIG BROTHER still wants to whip lil brother's ass..How abOUt we meet this Saturday at yOUr place…let’s say the 50 yard line so we can exchange pleasantries the old fashion way..FACE TO FACE.. I’ll see yOU there..BOOMER!”

This looks like the last time Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will meet face-to-face in football for quite a while.

After the breakfast cheese fries are served, Stan Clark will depart Eskimo Joe’s for Boone Pickens Stadium about an hour before kickoff. His 95-year-old mother, Marvene, will be with him. They’ll be there to watch a cherished part of Oklahoma state history pass them by.