Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger discuss the report that the Bedlam Series between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will no longer be played after the Sooners move to the SEC.

Video transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

DAN WETZEL: Unfortunate but not surprising news. Brett McMurphy over at The Action Network reported that Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, the series, the Bedlam series, is over when the Sooners join the SEC.

So we're going to get Texas and Texas A&M back, which never should have gone away, when Texas and OU join the SEC. But we are now losing Bedlam, which I think is massively disappointing because it is a great event, a heated, heated rivalry.

It's a great showcase for the state of Oklahoma. And I don't know. I hope they can continue it. I hope they continue it somehow in football. But if nothing else, I hope they somehow at least play once a year in basketball, wrestling, and some of the other sports-- you know, softball. I mean, it's a really good rivalry in other sports. So I don't know. It's a tough casualty, right?

ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah, it is, and it's part of-- we just talked about, like, the fabric of college football, why we love it, why it has kind of an up on the NFL with people in college football. And I think this is one of the reasons is because of these long-standing kind of geographic, cultural, whatever you want to call it rivalries.

And we've gotten away from that a little bit because of money. I mean, let's just be honest, right? We've gotten away from it because of money, and money's driving, obviously, the realignment, and that's driving the split in the end of these series.

Like you said, I don't-- this was not a surprise at all. I think both ADs and even the coaches from each team have kind of like suggested, like, this is going to probably come to an end.

And it is, it's sad, and it's unfortunate. And I just-- I think back to the West Virginia/Pitt game that kicked off the year. And I was there, and it was awesome, and it was incredible. And it's things like this that make college football great.

I was at Bedlam for the first time. Thank goodness I went last year because we might not see very, very many of them more. But I went last year. It was my first experience there. It was at Oklahoma State.

It was just amazing. The environment was electric. It was an awesome game and just an awesome atmosphere. And it's too bad that TV, money, and realignment have taken us away from these.

PAT FORDE: This is one of those things that-- again, it's just-- like, the schools and the conferences have been empowered so much that they just-- it's one more thing they can take away from the fans without any repercussion, you know.

It's like, well, we'll kick off at 11:00 because TV tells us to because of money. We'll change our geographic location in terms of common sense because money. And you'll like it, and you'll deal with it, and you'll make justifications why it's a good thing to do, even though it doesn't really help you personally at all.

We'll have USC fans sit there and try to say that it's a good thing that we're not going to play in the Bay Area but we are going to play in State College, Pennsylvania. The sport is so powerful that you get fans to go along with anything, even if they don't really like it, but they just go along.

And so hey, you've got an audience full of suckers, basically, so you just keep sucking them, right? I mean, you just keep taking them. This is another example of that.

And the amazing thing about Bedlam to me-- it's not a competitive series. Oklahoma dominates that series, you know. Thank goodness Oklahoma State won last year to at least change the narrative a little bit.

But even though it's not been a competitive series, people care deeply, you know. I mean, it is talked about and hotly contested. And yeah, this isn't a surprise. I mean, Gundy-- I was at the Big 12 media days. Gundy said it's going to happen then. So it just isn't, like, some shocking thing.

DAN WETZEL: It's better in basketball, and I hope they at least play once a year in basketball. I hope they play twice, home and home. But at least they could switch it each year or at worst play in Oklahoma City.

PAT FORDE: Yeah, and that's--

DAN WETZEL: But that would suck because I mean, it's the only time Iba Arena gets going anymore.

PAT FORDE: Well, and both schools are good at a lot of sports, so yeah. I hope they wrestle against each other, play golf against each other, play baseball against each other. They're good at all those sports.