Bedlam Post Mortem: Q&A Session with Porter (Part 1)

When I asked for questions in The Chamber regarding Bedlam and all the fallout that comes with those losses, I wasn’t prepared to get 80+ responses in the thread. I sorted through some of the best ones though and wanted to post my answers here on the site. Let’s jump right in!

• I have deep and growing sense of apathy towards football. The only thing that truly surprised me this year was losing to Texas Tech. How do I fight it off? Why should I buy tickets next year? (Beyond support your school, bad fan).

This is fair, and I don’t know that I have an answer. This is why it’s more exciting (and I would argue fun) to be a Baylor fan than an Alabama fan. Being a Baylor fan this year was an unexpected thrill. Being a Bama fan for the last 10 years has been a grueling slog that (at best!) ends in grim joy. That’s another post for another time. This is also reason A. B. C. and D. for OSU to mix something up right now. Pay a crootin coordinator $1M a year. Do something crazy to show that you’re truly efforting to get to Tier 1.

Otherwise? We sense what everyone knows: OSU is going to go in circles for the rest of Gundy’s time here.

• Will this year be known as the mismanaged personnel year? How much different does this year look if Spencer has 12 games under his belt September 1 and Chuba is a junior not RS Soph. I get you can’t predict everything, but when you make $5.1 million you should be able to predict SOME things. We basically mismanaged our players out of a true Big 12 title shot.

I think the year Tyreek had 133 touches in 12 games will be known as the mismanaged personnel year.

• Getting away from the specifics about how to solve the OU problem or the recruiting problem, etc. I’m more interested in what we as fans are supposed to do with this. We all invest a lot of thought and love and emotion into OSU football, and we almost never beat our rival. Do we disengage? Do we buy in every year and open ourselves up to the stomach punch that is sure to come? I would hate it if the players and coaches adopted my personal philosophy on bedlam, but it’s just easier if I assume we are going to lose every time. That’s not saying I don’t walk into that stadium with a little ray of hope — I do — but I know deep down what is about to happen.

Crying about Gundy is futile because he’s not going anywhere and I don’t really want him to go anyways. So how are OSU fans supposed to deal with the bedlam problem?

My wife and I talk about the idea of expectations quite a lot. Do we artificially lower them when it comes to our kids and our dreams and this business and everything else so that we aren’t disappointed when they don’t come to fruition? Or do we keep our expectations high but in an open hand, knowing that they likely won’t be met? I don’t know that I have an answer generally.

I do think it’s good practice to lower expectations for something that has a tendency to go a certain way. That is, if my kid is a C-student, and every semester I think “this is definitely the semester!” and she brings home another C, then after six years of this, what am I doing? There are plenty of other aspects to her life that she’s good at and successful in (i.e. Kansas State, TCU etc.) that I can celebrate without keeping expectations high for something I know isn’t going to go well.

I’m just glad Bedlam is only once a year tbh. Also, here is the viewpoint of another much-maligned rival with a basketball team that might also be good.

So that’s how it is, and how it’s going to be. Michigan’s going to pretend to dignity and Ohio State’s going to beat their ass. Nothing is going to change. You can be done with Don Brown all you want. Michigan can hire Super Robot Lombardi as their defensive coordinator, and Ohio State will beat his ass. Not one emotion you might have matters. You can agitate on a message board all you want and even if you get your heart’s fondest desire, Ohio State is going to beat that guy’s ass. So okay. The only thing I’m annoyed with this Monday is that I have to spend time writing this instead of talking about the basketball team, which is good and fun, because of some lingering sense of obligation. [MGoBlog]

• I know it’s HIGHLY unlikely; but is the only way OSU fixes their “OU problem” by separating from them in a conference realignment? Texas A&M has stunk in the SEC but still get the benefit of the doubt most of the time…

We would catch major flak obviously, and we would lose our biggest revenue-generating game of the year. I don’t see anything changing in the next decade that we all of a sudden start consistently winning Bedlam. It really feels like we are shooting ourselves in the foot continuing this rivalry. How many times has this game stopped us from winning conference championships? Like was said above in a different context, but it feels like we just play this game “because we always have.”

I’d be all for super conferences and moving to the Pac-16 by ourselves at this point, if they’d take us by ourselves. Hopefully OU would go to the SEC. It’s taking a step back to move forward if you will, but not having that game on our schedule every year would make our lives so much easier.

OSU would have won some Pac-X titles, wouldn’t they? It remains incredibly unfortunate and coincidental that this golden era stretch has coincided with a platinum era stretch for the Sooners.

• Shouldn’t we be more pissed about the Baylor program surpassing us 2 years removed from the dead and losing to Tech than about a Bedlam loss with a backup QB and our star WR out.

Yes. Although I will say it’s not exactly like Baylor is lighting teams on fire. They beat Tech in 2OT on a questionable call. They beat TCU in 3OT. They beat Iowa State on a last-second field goal. They beat West Virginia by 3. They beat Rice (!) by 8. They’ve won every 50-50 game they’ve had. Of course the flip side is that they should have beaten OU by 70, and they lost so I suppose it all balances out. Anyway, Baylor is good, Rhule is good and they’re recruiting as well or better than OSU. So yes, all of that feels problematic.

• How do you think we would have fared if Spencer and Tylan were healthy and available to play?

I think it would have been a real game. Listen, we all watched it. I turned to Kyle B. after Hurts strolled into the east end zone with TD No. 1, and I did the Vince Carter.

It never didn’t feel over. With Sanders and Tylan I suppose it would have felt less over early on than it did without them, but I still think OU probably finds a way (see question No. 3).

More to come later.