Dave Wilson is an editor for ESPN.com since 2010. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.
STILLWATER, Okla. — At 11 p.m. on the campus of Oklahoma State, about five jubilant hours after the Cowboys ended 118 years of Bedlam history with a 27-24 victory over Oklahoma, a group of OSU students were doing a little film study of their own.
“We’ve analyzed the video,” one bystander said, almost as if he’s triangulated coordinates. “Look, from this angle, you can see the tree and those two fountains.”
Call it CSI: Stillwater. But they weren’t solving a crime. They were looking for a legendary piece of OSU football history.
Noah Campbell, a sophomore civil engineering major from Tonkawa, Oklahoma, was shirtless, wearing shorts on a brisk 63-degree night and standing neck-deep in Theta Pond, an idyllic spot on the edge of campus that, according to the university, was “used at the turn of the century to water the college work animals.” But on Saturday night, Theta Pond had swallowed the goalposts that had been dunked by students following OSU’s victory, and Campbell was being navigated toward two water features by total strangers.
“My uncle texted me about it,” Campbell’s friend Griffin Singleton said. “I told them that they threw the goalposts in Theta Pond and he was like, ‘You should go get a piece of those goalposts. That’d be pretty legendary.’ I sent out a text to our little group chat, asking if anybody wanted to go, that I was heading there with a grinder [a power tool for cutting] and I was going to try and get a piece of the goalposts.”
Campbell took him up on the offer, saying his dad had also texted him that he had a friend who wanted a piece of them, and he volunteered to do the actual water excavation. Together, they made a trip to the pond but were dissuaded by students sitting on benches around it, who told them the goalposts were long gone, paraded down The Strip right around the corner, past the Wooden Nickel and The Copper Penny and all the other bars where revelers were still celebrating.
But upon returning home, another friend told them that he thought they were still submerged at the bottom of the pond. They decided to make one more run at it.
“I was like, ‘Look, if you want to get in the pond right now and swim around and look for it, I’ll come and support you,'” Singleton said. “[Campbell] looked at me [and] he was like, ‘Yeah, if we find this, it’d be huge.'”
Campbell said the water “felt like an ice bath,” and onlookers steered him wrong a couple of times. But after about 15 minutes, after a team of Cowboys studied angles of several different TikTok and Instagram posts, Campbell lit up.
“Griff … Griff … I found it,” he said, feeling something with his foot on the mossy bottom of the pond. Four or five students rushed over to help as Campbell reached down and pulled a bright yellow piece of metal out of the water. It was Bedlam all over again.
“It’s like a piece of the Berlin Wall!” a voice exclaimed from the darkness.
Together, a team of newly forged friends started to lift the pole out. It kept going. And going. “Is this one of the uprights?” they asked, and it appeared to be.
Campbell and Singleton estimated it was about 30-35 feet long, way bigger than they expected. They whisked it away down the street, wary of being discovered by anyone else who’d try to make away with their bounty.
“The No. 1 priority was just getting off the streets as fast as possible,” Singleton said.
Oklahoma State’s goalposts got tossed into Theta Pond on campus after the Bedlam win. But later Saturday night, I stumbled across Noah Campbell, a student who went for a swim to find part of them – and succeeded. pic.twitter.com/57UQcbVdPm
An agribusiness major with a minor in law from Amarillo, Texas, Singleton just happened to have a chop saw in his truck. He cut the goalpost in half, but it still wouldn’t fit in the bed of his Toyota Tundra, so he rolled down the windows in the back seat and stuck the pieces through them horizontally, sticking out about five feet on each side, thankful he just had a short drive ahead to get home.
It was another magical moment in a historic day for the jilted Cowboys. Their blood rivals, the Sooners, are leaving them behind for the SEC. The series has been lopsided, with OSU almost always outmanned by one of the most storied programs in college football history, losing 91 of the rivalry games. They’d get one chance to settle a multigenerational score. And most Oklahoma State fans would’ve done anything to be there.
Carroll Germany, 82, who graduated from OSU and later was the superintendent of the university’s fruit and vegetable research farm, has only missed two Bedlam games in Stillwater since 1959, he estimates. He remembers freezing to his seat in the 1985 “Ice Bowl” game, a 13-0 loss to the Sooners, and wanting to go to the car in the second half, but his 13-year-old son, a Cowboys fan, called him a fair-weather fan. So he, his son and his son’s friend, a Sooners fan, stuck it out.
On Saturday, Germany, who was walking gingerly, said he can’t handle stadium stairs very well anymore. But he’s no fair-weather fan, so he wouldn’t miss this one. He drove more than two hours from Tahlequah, Oklahoma to watch the game with his son and his son’s friend, that same Sooners fan, proud to keep the tradition alive. Only this time, they had to add three extra seats for his grandsons, his son’s boys, who are all OSU students.
“It’s a big deal,” Germany said. “A really big deal.”
Reece Hamar, who was sporting a fuzzy orange OSU robe and a newsboy cap, said he’s been to every home game in Stillwater for 23 years. Both his brothers went to Oklahoma State, as did both his parents and grandparents.
“It’s a family tradition when it comes to the Pokes,” he said, adding that he’s still looking forward to playing the Sooners in other sports.
“Look at the Bedlam series, other than football,” Hamar said. “We’re going to win. I mean, we won it eight of the last nine years.”
But this day was about football. He knows the history. And Saturday meant everything.
“We’re going to have 5,000-6,000 days until OU has beaten us after today,” Hamar said, anticipating a long gap in another game between the two. “So that’s something to hang your hat on.”
The victory came from the steady hands of an unlikely hero. Quarterback Alan Bowman is in his sixth season after twice suffering a collapsed lung while playing at Texas Tech for three seasons before being benched and transferring to Michigan, where he was a backup who appeared in five games in two seasons. He began this season at Oklahoma State in a three-way quarterback rotation before seizing the job and throwing for 334 yards Saturday. Bowman will end his career going 1-0 in Bedlam.
“Obviously the record skews one way and that’s fine,” Bowman said while wearing a game-worn Josh Fields jersey, honoring the former OSU QB who went 2-0 against the Sooners. “But I think now we kind of gave the opportunity for everybody in Oklahoma to talk about — well, the only one they have to talk about is the last one — and we won it. At the end of the day, you can just say, ‘Well, what happened in the last one?’ And we all know what happened.”
The Sooners had a fitting star, however. Receiver Drake Stoops had career bests of 12 catches and 134 yards after his father, legendary Sooners coach Bob, went 14-4 against the Cowboys. But on this day, the usual Sooner Magic was thwarted, with Stoops being stopped two yards short by freshman corner Dylan Smith on fourth-and-5 on OU’s last-chance drive to tie the game. An unheralded true freshman stopping a Stoops, who was also the subject of a controversial no-call on a potential pass interference in the end zone earlier. It was OSU’s day.
Afterward, fans flooded the field, covering every inch of the surface. The speakers blared “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” by Sooners fan Toby Keith and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” by Taylor Swift. The goalposts somehow made their way out of the stadium with high walls all the way around. A grown man ran up to OSU players yelling, “THANK YOU! THANK YOU!” before looking to the skies.
In his news conference, Mike Gundy, the former OSU quarterback in his 33rd appearance in the rivalry, celebrated the “once-in-a-lifetime gift” his players had delivered to “Oklahoma State people.” After he was finished at the podium, he sat down and talked to reporters for an extended period, relaxed and free-flowing.
“I’m having fun,” Gundy said. “One hundred and eighteen years. It’s worth it.”
People lined up to take pictures with the stump that remained when the goalposts were ripped down. Newscasters did their postgame shows next to it.
Andy Stevenson, a member of the Paddle People, the OSU spirit group that bangs their wooden paddles on the wall, had lined up 2½ hours before the game, saying it was the most people he’d ever seen at Boone Pickens Stadium that early — by a long shot.
He also ended up being one of the small groups helping Campbell navigate the pond, reflecting on what the day meant to him.
“It was crazy,” Stevenson said. “I mean, to be part of the last Bedlam and to win? That’s insane. It’s my senior year. I wanted nothing more than this.”
Hundreds of students were lined up trying to get into bars on The Strip, unaware that one street over at the same time, those goalposts were being whisked away. At 11:08 p.m., a lone “Boomer!” rang out in a parking lot on Jefferson Ave. It got no response.
Campbell and Singleton, meanwhile, had just headed home to carve up a piece of neon yellow aluminum pipe that was more suited for a museum than the bottom of a pond.
“I’ll take a piece and then I’ll probably give it to family and friends,” Singleton said. “This is not just OSU history. This is college football history.”
Jake Trotter covers college football for ESPN. He joined ESPN in 2011. Before that, he worked at The Oklahoman, Austin American-Statesman and Middletown (Ohio) Journal newspapers. You can follow him @Jake_Trotter.
One year ago, Oregon defensive tackle Derrick Harmon was stuffing the run for Michigan State. Kobe Savage was intercepting passes for Kansas State. Jabbar Muhammad was manning cornerback in the national championship for Washington. Evan Stewart was hauling in catches for Texas A&M. And Dillon Gabriel, of course, was throwing touchdown passes for Oklahoma.
Oregon doesn’t want to be known as Transfer Portal U. Coach Dan Lanning’s No. 1-ranked Ducks, after all, boast loads of homegrown talent, including leading rusher Jordan James and leading tackler Bryce Boettcher, who also stars for the Oregon baseball team.
Earlier this year, the Ducks inked the nation’s fourth-ranked recruiting class. Oregon’s 2025 recruiting class is currently ranked seventh. And the Ducks already have landed six ESPN 300 commitments from the Class of 2026.
But in its debut season in the Big Ten, Oregon has jumped to an 8-0 start heading into Saturday’s trip to Michigan behind the play of several key FBS transfers from the past two years. In fact, 14 of the Ducks’ 22 offensive and defensive starters played elsewhere in 2022, including their entire starting receiving corps, starting defensive line and starting secondary.
Even Oregon’s Atticus Sappington, who nailed the game-winning field goal against Ohio State on Oct. 12, kicked for rival Oregon State last year.
“Everybody here is grateful,” said Ducks leading receiver Tez Johnson, who transferred in from Troy a year ago, then set an Oregon record with 86 receptions last season. “No one takes it for granted.”
Per ESPN Research, Arizona State and Virginia Tech are the only other Power 4 programs whose starting receiving lineups are comprised entirely of transfers.
Colorado, Indiana and SMU are the other Power 4 teams with all-transfer starting defensive lines. UCLA, Louisville and Houston join the Ducks as the other Power 4 all-transfer starting defensive backfields.
Lanning has said that while he wants to build Oregon through its recruiting classes, he’s always looking for the “right pieces” with the “right character fit” in the portal who can enhance the team.
The Ducks have gotten just that from an array of transfers who, collectively, have helped Oregon become a legit national title contender.
“We’ve got a lot of veteran guys, who’ve played a lot of ball, who understand our roles,” said Savage, who had a team-high eight tackles in Oregon’s thrilling 32-31 win over the Buckeyes. “A lot of us have one year left. We’re all in it to play a great brand of football, to showcase our abilities and talents for the next level and to bring a national championship to Oregon.”
Those factors, combined with a robust NIL operation, have drawn several talented transfers to Eugene over the past two years.
When Washington coach Kalen DeBoer left for Alabama to replace Nick Saban after the national title game, Muhammad said he considered following him to Tuscaloosa. But then, immediately after he entered the portal, Muhammad got a text from Johnson, who told him, “Bro, we need you at Oregon.” Johnson, who knew what Muhammad could do after facing him twice — once in the regular season and then again in the Pac-12 championship — texted Lanning next.
“Coach said, ‘We’re going to get him,'” Johnson recalled. “I’m going to call him right now.”
Lanning followed up by FaceTiming Muhammad every day until he committed to the Ducks.
“It’s been a match made in heaven,” said Muhammad, who leads Oregon with seven pass breakups. “That a group of guys could transfer in and jell like this with the rest of the team so fast is kind of crazy. It’s actually not normal. … We’ve put our differences to the side, egos to the side and have come together and meshed.”
Muhammad and others said Oregon’s “get real” sessions over the offseason helped fast-track the chemistry now manifesting on the field. Once a week, the players would gather in rotating small groups of around a dozen, discussing a different topic each time. Harmon said the most memorable subject centered around the question, “What’s your why?”
“The first day I got here, I knew it was different,” said Harmon, who ripped the ball away from running back Quinshon Judkins in the Ducks’ win over Ohio State, leading to Oregon’s first touchdown. “Learning about a guy’s backstory, learning how a guy grew up or how a guy got here through the portal and what he had to go through … little details like that that you probably wouldn’t know. But now that you do, you just play a little bit harder for the guy.”
With so many new pieces, the Ducks still got off to a slow start. They narrowly defeated Idaho in the opener, then got a scare from Boise State.
From there, Oregon has surged, with its victory over Ohio State helping to catapult the Ducks to the top of the polls.
Gabriel, who has since returned to the forefront of the Heisman conversation alongside Colorado wideout/cornerback Travis Hunter and Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty, has quickly generated a rapport with Johnson and the other receivers. The defense, meanwhile, has surrendered more than 14 points just twice this season. The past two weeks, Oregon outscored Purdue and No. 24 Illinois 73-9 combined.
“We definitely had some growing pains — we were a completely different team with new people on both sides of the ball,” Savage said. “But I feel like we’ve really started clicking.”
Spearheaded by its transfers, Oregon’s first playoff appearance in a decade is within sight. And perhaps, the school’s first national championship, too.
“Personally, I don’t feel like we’re nowhere near our peak,” Harmon said. “We’re just scratching the surface. We’ve still got a lot of work to do. But once we hit that peak, people are going to know it.”
The Big 12 determined Thursday that none of its games were compromised by unencrypted frequencies used with coach-to-player in-game communications this season.
Athletic director Kirby Hocutt said he raised the issue during a call with Big 12 athletic directors Tuesday, after learning that anyone with a scanner and knowledge of how to locate the frequencies had access to those in-game communications.
“Following the industry-wide concerns surrounding helmet communications, the Big 12 conducted a review of conference games and helmet communications processes to address any issues member institutions raised regarding this matter,” the Big 12 said in a statement issued Thursday. “The review showed that at no point was any Big 12 competition compromised.”
In addition, all Big 12 helmet communication programs now have the update from GSC that provides encryption, and schools may use either CoachComm or GSC for coach-to-player communication at their discretion.
GSC is the helmet communication device provider for all 68 teams in Power 4 conferences this season.
“We’ve got to have a game whose integrity is not questionable in any way on a Saturday afternoon,” Hocutt told ESPN on Wednesday. “We owe it to the 120 young men on our football team to ensure that happens, that it’s a game of fair competition and the same set of rules are enforced.”
The revelation that college football teams have not been using encrypted frequencies has frustrated several Big 12 athletic directors, who believed the Power 4 schools had the same encrypted setup used in the NFL, sources said.
This is the first college football season that the in-game use of coach-to-player helmet communications and tablets has been permitted at the FBS level. The NCAA approved the rules change in April, six months after launching an investigation into Michigan‘s alleged signal-stealing scheme under former staffer Connor Stalions.
Football operations executives for the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and ACC have worked together with GSC in the four weeks since to investigate potential concerns and move to a more encrypted and secure platform.
Texas Tech (5-3, 3-2) opted to move forward with a different coach-to-player system with encrypted communication provided by CoachComm for its game against No. 11 Iowa State on Saturday, sources said.
A source at one Big 12 school told ESPN that his staff purchased a scanner earlier this month upon learning of the potential vulnerability and was successful in locating their own coach-to-player communication frequency during a practice.
The frequency does not broadcast all headset communications between coaches, which would be invaluable, but merely what one coach says to one player on the field — typically a quarterback on offense and a linebacker on defense — and only when the coach is holding the button to speak to them before communication is cut off 15 seconds before the snap.
“There’s no real advantage,” one Big 12 chief of staff argued. “One, you’re speaking a different language. Two, if you think you’d be able to enact in real time what they say and try to do it on the field, you’re delusional. You’re just being your stereotypical paranoid football coach. You can’t relay it to the kids fast enough.”
LAS VEGAS — Quarterback Matthew Sluka, who left UNLV three games into the season over a name, image and likeness dispute, has entered the transfer portal, agent Marcus Cromartie said Thursday.
Sluka’s decision to leave the Rebels after leading them to a 3-0 start ignited a nationwide debate about what kind of precedent this could set. By leaving before playing a fifth game, Sluka was able to use a redshirt season and preserve his final year of eligibility.
Cromartie and Bob Sluka, the quarterback’s father, have said Sluka was promised $100,000 in NIL money to transfer from Holy Cross, but no payments were ever made.
“I committed to UNLV based on certain representations that were made to me, which were not upheld after I enrolled,” Sluka posted on X when he announced his departure. “Despite discussions, it became clear that these commitments would not be fulfilled in the future. I wish my teammates the best of luck this season and hope for the continued success of the program.”
Sluka, a graduate transfer, has not spoken publicly since then.
UNLV released a statement at the time accusing Sluka’s agent of making “financial demands.”
“UNLV athletics interpreted these demands as a violation of the NCAA pay-for-play rules, as well as Nevada state law,” the school said. “UNLV does not engage in such activity, nor does it respond to implied threats. UNLV has honored all previously agreed-upon scholarships for Matthew Sluka.”
Hajj-Malik Williams, a senior transfer from Campbell, replaced Sluka as the starter and has passed for 1,017 yards and 12 touchdowns and rushed for 495 yards and five TDs. The Rebels are 3-2 under Williams, including a 29-24 loss to now No. 15 Boise State on Friday.
UNLV is 6-2 overall and bowl eligible for the second season in a row, the first time the Rebels have accomplished that in program history.