Big 12 preview: With Bedlam ending, what is Oklahoma State's place in conference?

Editor's note: This is part of a series previewing each of the opponents on BYU's inaugural Big 12 schedule, beginning with the Cougars' Sept. 23 road opener at Kansas and leading up to defending champion Kansas State before fall camp opens in August.

SALT LAKE CITY — Like most teams in college football, Oklahoma State looked to the transfer portal after a four-year starting quarterback left the program in the offseason.

Spencer Sanders out, Alan Bowman in. The Cowboys replaced a slew of transfer portal defections with portal additions of their own, returning only six total starters. But that was only the beginning of a mountain of change thrust on 18th-year coach Mike Gundy's program.

With Oklahoma's move to the SEC in 2024, the Sooners' in-state rivalry series of Bedlam will play out for the 118th (and possibly final) time in a history that dates back to 1904 on Nov. 4. The two sides don't have another game scheduled between the longtime foes.

"The Bedlam game is over because Oklahoma chose to leave the Big 12, period," said Gundy, whose team was picked to finish seventh (with one first-place vote) in the 14-team Big 12. "It's got nothing to do with Oklahoma State.

"Do I like that? No. Do I like that conferences have broken up in the past? No, I don't. But I also know that we have to control what we can control, which is conference realignment is there. It's probably still going on. Wherever we all end up and whatever schedule they give us to play, we all play it and do the best we can."

The Cowboys are more than their rivals, of course, though the crimson-colored portion of the state has been more identifiable nationally for years. Oklahoma has won 14 titles in Big 12 football history, which is almost as many as the rest of the league combined.

Oklahoma State, by contrast, has just one Big 12 football championship — in 2011 — while ranking in the top half of the league most years.

The Cowboys lost to Oklahoma a year ago 28-13, but finished with a better overall record at 7-6. Both programs, obviously, are hoping to be better in 2023 — in what will likely mark the last meeting of Bedlam for the foreseeable future in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Gundy added he wouldn't entertain Bedlam's return as a nonconference game, especially not with the Big 12's current schedule of nine conference games (to say nothing of the SEC likely following suit in years to come).

"Everybody needs to realize, it didn't have to happen if they (Oklahoma) didn't change leagues," he said.

Gundy's team will host three more games after this year's Bedlam ultimatum: road trips to UCF and Houston, followed by the Cowboys' home finale Nov. 24 against BYU. With no logical geographic pairing, that may leave Oklahoma State to create new traditions in the Big 12 to come; and who better than one of those newcomers, including western-most BYU.

The Cowboys aren't concerned with the past, only the future of the league in which they find themselves.

"I think that we have a lot of things to be excited about," said Gundy, who has long championed the four newcomers. "I think we have the most innovative commissioner in all of sports right now. ... Looking forward to it. I hear a lot about the stadium, hear a lot about the fans, the students, the excitement about being in the Big 12 — justifiably so."

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