For Second Year In a Row, There Will Only be One Bedlam Wrestling Dual

Cowboy wrestling hasn’t announced its full schedule yet this season. I’ve been told to expect it pretty soon and will give my thoughts on it as soon as I have it.

We have been able to learn some pieces of it though as other schools have announced theirs. OSU is making a trip up to New Jersey to wrestle Princeton and Rutgers in January. Iowa comes to Stillwater on February 24th, and Lehigh on February 3rd. The Cowboys go to South Dakota State and Minnesota in mid-November and wrestle Air Force in January and Iowa State in February. All those matches set up to be a pretty strong schedule.

On Monday, OU announced its slate, so we find out the date for Bedlam. It turns out that for the second year in a row, there will only be one Bedlam dual.

Save the dates …

The 2018-19 OU Wrestling schedule is here! ?

?: https://t.co/Z0lLWr0wRp pic.twitter.com/NRaqzanY1N

— Oklahoma Wrestling (@OU_Wrestling) September 10, 2018

It’s only the second time since the 1948-1949 season that there will only be one bedlam dual. Last season was the first time since the 48-49 season. It was announced last year that OU coach Lou Roselli opted to not wrestle the home and home, essentially because he knew OU would lose and didn’t see the benefit in his team wrestling the second dual.

“Until we challenge and it’s competitive and fun to watch, you’re still in a very difficult situation,”

The reason for not having the home and home this year hasn’t been announced.

OU said at that time that the home and home “could” come back this year. It won’t. According to the release, the Cowboys and Sooners will only meet once next season on December 9th in Stillwater. Interesting that the dual will be in Stillwater. Last year it was as well, so not having the home dual in Norman, OU is also missing what would certainly be their best crowd of the season.

The matchup in Stillwater will be a bloodbath. Preseason rankings for the Big 12 were announced yesterday by Flo. The Cowboys are ranked No. 1 at eight of the ten weights. The two weights where the Cowboys aren’t No. 1 they are ranked either No. 2 or No. 3. The highest ranked wrestler on the entire OU roster is No. 3 in the conference and he wrestles at 184 where OSU is ranked 1st.