Bedlam editorial: New stadium, jerseys won't make Cowboys winners

Editor’s note: In the spirit of the Bedlam rivalry, The Daily O’Collegian, Oklahoma State University’s student newspaper, and The Oklahoma Daily agreed to exchange editorials poking fun at each other and run them at the same time.

OUR VIEW

We’re worried for you, Cowboy fans. We really are.

Heading into Saturday’s Bedlam matchup in Stillwater, your team is on the verge of completing the greatest regular season in its long, lackluster history, and we Sooner fans know you must be a nervous wreck.

As fans of a program with an all-time win percentage hovering around .500, you can be forgiven for hoping this is finally the year you break out of decades of obscurity to actually achieve something of note nationally — but that’s where our concern for you comes in.

In Norman, we’re afraid all this optimism surrounding your program will burst and become a dark, all-encompassing despair in the wake of your team’s inevitable Bedlam defeat at the hands of the boys in crimson and cream.

We don’t know how you will react to choking against a two-loss, injury-riddled Sooner squad, but we’re fairly certain it won’t be pretty.

You see, in Norman, we know what it’s like to prepare for and win championship-clinching football games. After seven national championships and 43 conference championships, it’s kind of our thing.

Your team, which hasn’t won an outright conference title since the 1930s, would happily consider a season that included a loss to Iowa State as the greatest in its history. But there’s nothing wrong with that, dear Pokes.

We know it’s tough living life in our shadow, so we Sooner fans applaud your commitment to cheering your team through thin and thinner.

In recent years we’ve noticed a concerted effort on the part of your administration and athletic department to increase your program’s stature on the national stage, but come on guys and gals, that’s just not Oklahoma State.

First came the donation of T. Boone Pickens’ millions, and most recently your football team underwent a wardrobe change, but sadly neither stadium renovations nor new jerseys alone will fill your locker room’s bare trophy cabinets.

Even after Boone Pickens Stadium’s recent face-lift, it’s clear your team will never truly compete on a patch of grass as revered or imposing as Owen Field, and your jerseys are simply an affront to good taste.

The mix-and-match uniform thing had been done long before you guys implemented it this season, but you know that. Don’t you, Oregon of the Midwest?

You don’t look cool, you aren’t being original and, sadly, when your team takes the field each Saturday it looks like a group of parking-cone orange, third-rate Ducks.

If we’re honest, everything about Oklahoma State these days stinks of a sort of nouveau-riche (look it up) “look at me, look at me” desperation for attention that, in time, you’ll find comes as no substitute for tradition or on-field success.

Our hope for you, beloved Cowboy fans, is that after Saturday’s defeat you finally make up your minds once and for all to leave the pursuit of championship trophies and glitzy, prime time BCS bowl appearances to the big boys of the collegiate football scene.

Embrace the mediocrity that is your birthright, cowboys and cowgirls, and leave the spotlight to those who have earned it.

We can’t wait to see your Co-Big 12 Champion* rings. So adorable.

Boomer Sooner!

• LINK: Click here to read Oklahoma State's Bedlam editorial

The Editorial Board

Send The Editorial Board a message