10 Things to Know About Bedlam 2019

With Bedlam 2019 just 24 hours away, it’s time for a deep dive into this week’s game notes ahead of the most important game of the season for both teams. At stake: OU’s national title hopes, OSU’s 10-win season (which would have sounded completely nuts just six weeks ago) and bragging rights for the next year inside the state of OK.

Here are 10 things you need to know about Bedlam 2019.

1. 5K Definition

Here are your 5,000-point teams (so far) in the 2010s (with just a month to go).

1. Oregon: 5,484
2. Oklahoma 5,375
3. Alabama: 5,317
4. Ohio State 5,265
5. Oklahoma State: 5,154
6. Clemson 5038
7. Baylor: 5,004

The only of these teams that play each other consistently are Baylor, OU and Oklahoma State. Other than that, every other team is alone in a conference. So that means Bedlam is annually — or has annually been for a decade — between two of the five most explosive offenses of the last 10 years.

2. Stillwater vs. Norman

I wonder how common it is that a team has won nearly twice as many rivalry games on the road as at home. OSU has 12 wins in Norman or OKC and seven (!) in Stillwater. Here are the Stillwater wins …

• 2011
• 2002
• 1998
• 1966
• 1932
• 1930
• 1924

That is the toughest scene.

3. NO TO

I said this in our predictions, but I think two things have to happen for OSU to win on Saturday. The first is that they hit at least two deep balls. The second is that they don’t turn it over at all. Here is a stat.

Dating back to 2005, OSU is 38-2 when not committing a turnover.

The two losses: OU in 2016 (of course!) and Baylor at home in 2015. Also, OSU is 70-9 in the Gundy era when winning the turnover battle. That’s truly remarkable (and I would imagine seven of those losses are to OU).

4. Top-10 Slayer?

OSU has eight wins over top-10 teams since 2008. Unfortunately for us (and them), none of them were over OU.

5. OU Dominance

In all but two Bedlam games (2005, 2009) in the Gundy era, OU has been ranked. In all 13 instances (including this season’s), they’ve been inside the top 20. In each of the last five, they’ve been inside the top 10. I wrote about this earlier this week, but it’s incredibly unfortunate for OSU and Gundy that the best decade of OSU football has coincided with an OU program that’s as good or better than it’s ever been.

/whispers, here are the rankings for the four Bedlam games Les Miles coached in (and won two of them).

6. The 5.0 Club

Nobody in the Big 12 other than these two teams averages over 5.0 yards a carry. Everybody else is between 4.0 and 5.0, except for West Virginia, which is at 2.6. Here are the Bedlam numbers.

OSU: 5.4
OU: 6.4

Saturday might be an Army-Navy appetizer.

7. Fifty-Six More Yards

That’s how many Chuba needs on Saturday to sit alone in second on the all-time single-season rushing list. Only Barry’s iconic, improbable 1988 campaign would be (way) ahead of him. If he hits his season average in the next two, it would be the 10th-best season in college football history.

Also, here’s the single-season Big 12 list. The one thing Iowa State can be proud of.

8. Career YPC

Here’s a thing: If you doubled Chuba’s career output (reasonable since he’s a soph. and has only started for one season), he would be OSU’s all-time career leading rusher, despite carrying it 180 fewer times than its current leading rusher, Thurman Thomas.

This tells me a few things but the most prominent is that his yards-per-carry numbers are silly. Here’s your all-time 6.0 YPC club.

Barry: 6.8
Chuba: 6.3
Savage: 6.0

9. Another 10 Wins?

OSU is trying to keep its 10-win season alive. Another one in 2019 would mean seven in 10 years. Iowa State has never won 10 games. Ever. You have to go back to 1987 to get to seven 10-win seasons for Texas A&M. The two Kansas schools have combined for 12 10-win seasons in the last 240 years combined of football. What OSU has accomplished the last 10 years has been special, regardless of how Bedlam goes.

10. Hurts vs. Hubbard

Hurts’ YPC this season: 6.422222
Hubbard’s YPC this season: 6.42807

Let’s go.