Jake TrotterMar 25, 2025, 08:24 PM ET
- Jake Trotter is a senior writer at ESPN. Trotter covers college football. He also writes about other college sports, including men's and women's basketball. Trotter resides in the Cleveland area with his wife and three kids and is a fan of his hometown Oklahoma City Thunder. He covered the Cleveland Browns and NFL for ESPN for five years, moving back to college football in 2024. Previously, Trotter worked for the Middletown (Ohio) Journal, Austin American-Statesman and Oklahoman newspapers before joining ESPN in 2011. He's a 2004 graduate of Washington and Lee University. You can reach out to Trotter at jake.trotter@espn.com and follow him on X at @Jake_Trotter.
Mike Gundy wants to bring Bedlam back -- in the spring.
The longtime Oklahoma State coach said Tuesday that he would prefer having two practices against rival Oklahoma in April instead of holding an intrasquad spring game.
The Cowboys and Sooners discontinued their Bedlam series last year after Oklahoma left the Big 12 for the SEC. Until then, the two in-state rivals had faced one another for 112 straight years.
Gundy suggested the Cowboys could go to Norman on April 12 -- the same date that Oklahoma has scheduled its "Crimson Combine" to replace the Sooners' traditional spring game. The following weekend, Oklahoma could make the trip to Stillwater, in place of Oklahoma State's spring game.
Gundy added he would also be open to just one annual spring meeting with the Sooners, with the two programs splitting the ticket gate and putting the proceeds toward NIL.
"It's not going to be a live game, but nobody really has live scrimmages anymore," Gundy said. "So, you make it a full thud like we're doing and practice against them, just like they do in the NFL."
Gundy noted his idea stemmed from Colorado coach Deion Sanders' push to replace spring games with practices and scrimmages against other programs.
Under current NCAA bylaws, football teams cannot play against another school in the spring, an NCAA spokesperson told ESPN.
Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, Ohio State and USC are among the programs opting to cancel their spring games this year. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said last month that the expanded schedule with the 12-team playoff prompted him to think differently about the spring game, considering the increased wear and tear on his players.
Gundy said Sanders got him thinking in recent days of how Oklahoma State could better utilize its spring.
"I think it's a great idea," Gundy said. "We get tired of practicing against one other."
