Cowboys dangerous as big underdogs
Justin Phillips was a true freshman in Bedlam 2014. Playing linebacker because OSU starter Josh Furman was hurt. Playing on special teams because somebody had to. And Phillips did what freshmen do. Got caught up in the moment.
Phillips turned and saw Tyreek Hill catch the punt, and it paralyzed him. You can’t turn away from watching Hill run with the ball.
Then Phillips noticed his assigned Sooner was hustling after Hill. Phillips tried to block him but missed. “Luckily, my guy wasn’t fast enough to catch Tyreek,” Phillips said.
It wasn’t luck. It was physics. No one is fast enough to catch Hill.
That 92-yard punt return for a touchdown
with 46 seconds left in the game forced overtime, where OSU eventually won 38-35. A stunning Bedlam upset, considering the Sooners were 19-½ point favorites.
Now comes another Bedlam mismatch, with OU favored by 20 points Saturday on Owen Field. But who knows what will happen?
The Cowboys have been Bedlam favorites four times this century; the Sooners won three of those games.
The Cowboys have been at least 17-point underdogs four times this century; the Sooners have won but two of those games and dang near squandered another. En route to the 2000 national championship, OU survived 12-7 in Stillwater as a 25-½ point favorite.
“It’s chaotic,” OSU quarterback Taylor Cornelius said of the Bedlam Series. “Fans love it, obviously. Players love it. Just a good rivalry.”
But a strange one. The Sooners dominate. The Cowboys occasionally surprise. Like in 2001, when OU was a 27½ point favorite and seemingly headed for the national championship Rose Bowl, only to lose 16-13 to the 3-7 Cowboys. And 2014, when OSU was 5-6 and seemingly headed for its first bowl-less season in nine years.
“We were kind of in the same situation,” Phillips said of 2014 compared to 2018. “We were fighting for a bowl game. Of course, it’s Bedlam as well. We knew it was going to be a dogfight coming in there.”
Phillips remains an OSU linebacker, starting as a fifth-year senior. Cornelius, also a starter, was in uniform that day in 2014 but didn't play.
“It was just a crazy day, crazy game,” Corndog said.
Nothing crazier than Bob Stoops’ temporary insanity. The Sooners punted with a little more than one minute left in the game. OSU almost blocked the kick, OU covered well and Hill fair caught the ball at the OSU 15-yard line with 1:01 left in the game. But Stoops inexplicably decided to take a running-into-the-kicker penalty and re-punt, hoping to burn off more time.
It was a decision that indicted his own defense but also showed that Stoops didn’t have enough fear of Hill, who
for three seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs has become the most electric player in the NFL.
“You see what he’s doing in the NFL nowadays, I think anybody’s crazy to kick it to that guy,” Corndog said.
The Sooners had no fight in overtime. They went backwards with the ball, Michael Hunnicutt missed a 44-yard field goal and OSU easily drove to set up Ben Grogan’s winning 21-yard field goal.
“Bedlam is a dogfight; that’s all it is,” said Phillips, who had a frontrow view for the play that defines this series’ name.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at (405) 760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM98.1. You can also view his personality page at newsok.com/berrytramel.