STILLWATER — Oklahoma State soccer coach Mike Gundy remembers precisely how rivalries was once earlier than exchanging his helmet for a headset in 1990.
It wasn’t simply one thing he embraced throughout his time as OSU’s quarterback within the late Nineteen Eighties, both. It stems from his time as the highest highschool participant within the state at Midwest City. And he made certain to fill everybody in throughout his weekly availability Monday afternoon.
“We didn’t like the other team. We didn’t want to talk to ‘em,” Gundy mentioned. “When I was at Midwest City, I didn’t want to talk to people from Del City. We tried to take their girls.”
Ahead of the No. 24 Cowboys’ 117th all-time meeting with rival Oklahoma within the Bedlam Series, Gundy doesn’t suppose the 2 groups – or any two groups in school soccer, for that matter – carry the identical hatred they as soon as did.
Things have drastically modified since his taking part in days, and after 18 years on the helm of this system, he’s noticed and mentioned he believes that rivalries have gotten much less of a deal to gamers now than they was once.
“Our players, as well as everybody else’s players in college football, they communicate through social media,” Gundy mentioned. “Like, they’ll talk to players on the team before we go play ‘em on Saturday.”
That doesn’t that means that disdain utterly vanishes, although.
“They’re gonna practice hard. They wanna compete. They wanna win, don’t get me wrong,” Gundy mentioned of his gamers. “But I just don’t know if there’s the bitter rivalry anymore with young people.”
Gundy is correct, too. Kind of.
Some of the issues may’ve modified with right now’s era. And sure, his gamers may sometimes have associates on the opposite crew. But Cowboys middle Joe Michalski sees it otherwise.
He enjoys taking part in towards a well-recognized face or an previous buddy. Not for these 60 minutes, although.
“It’s good to relish in those moments if you have people like that, because you don’t get those very often,” mentioned Michalski, a redshirt junior. “But the rivalries still remain bitter. Up until the end of the game, it’s on.”
Bedlam creates a unique dynamic for everybody concerned, and OSU junior wideout Brennan Presley is not any totally different. A local of Tulsa and graduate of Bixby, Presley grew up with this game circled on the schedule yearly.
That’s what made his 100-yard kickoff return for a landing towards the Sooners in 2021 so endearing. It’s a dose of nostalgia from a couple of years in the past, when he watched former Cowboy Tyreek Hill run a punt again to the tip zone to assist OSU notch a win over OU in 2014.
With the Sooners making the transfer to the SEC within the close to future, and with the Cowboys having their nonconference slate scheduled for the distant future, there aren’t too many editions of the collection left. After this yr, there’ll solely be two, and Presley can’t wait to play in each of them.
“Being in the position to where I can affect the outcome, it just makes it that more special,” Presley mentioned. “But, I mean, the game is always gonna be a special game.”
This yr’s meeting between the Cowboys and Sooners comes with almost uncharted territory. It’s the center of November, there are two weeks left within the common season, and OU (5-5, 2-5 Big 12 Conference) isn’t bowl eligible. And regardless of being bowl eligible, OSU (7-3, 4-3 Big 12) will enter the Week 11 contest in search of solely its third win since Oct. 8.
This Saturday presents alternatives for each applications to achieve marks.
For the Sooners, a win would imply their season will reside on after the common season. For the Cowboys, that may imply back-to-back wins within the collection for the primary time since 2001-02.
“Whenever we get to meet up with them, it doesn’t matter,” Presley mentioned. “The record doesn’t matter. We could go two-and-eight, they could go one-and-seven, but when we meet up it’s the biggest game of the year.”
“I think it’d feel real good knowing that OU has to win their last game of the season to be bowl eligible,” Cowboys defensive finish Brock Martin mentioned. “Going in Saturday, we’re gonna kind of know what’s going on with that.”
In some methods, perhaps Gundy was proper. Maybe there isn’t as a lot animosity surrounding rivalries, and this one particularly, in the case of the gamers. But, he mentioned, there’s at all times going to be stress between the fanbases.
And in some methods, perhaps Gundy was flawed. There aren’t too many possibilities left for every program to assert bragging rights, and shortly, both the Cowboys or Sooners will declare bragging rights one ultimate time within the foreseeable future.
That’s what makes this rivalry every part it’s ever been, every part it’s and every part it’ll ever be.
“We could probably play in the backyard and it’d still be the same emotional effect,” Presley mentioned. “It’s always gonna be Bedlam.”
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