Bedlam on Thanksgiving Friday?
The move of Texas A&M-Texas to Thanksgiving night opens an ABC slot on Thanksgiving Friday. Wonder if there’s any thought to moving Bedlam there?
Bedlam has been a Thanksgiving Saturday staple most of the last decade, and the games have been mostly entertaining. Let’s see, every Bedlam game in Stillwater the last 10 years has been dramatic. In Norman, the last three have been routs, but 2001 was a classic. So that’s about a 60 percent return on good football the last 10 years.
For some reason, ABC is married to the Big 12 on Thanksgiving weekend. The Big Ten finishes before that. The SEC is on CBS. The Big East is the Big East. So that leaves the ACC and the Pac-10. Morning games are out for the Pac-10, and the marquee matches in the ACC and Pac-10 for that weekend — USC-Notre Dame and Florida State-Florida — are available to ABC only every other year.
So ABC loves the Big 12 on Thanksgiving weekend. In 2007, Missouri-Kansas was added to the mix, with a Saturday night showdown, and it became one of the most important games of the year. But does ABC want to risk a big-time window with Mizzou-KU, which frankly has been a clunker most of the last 40 years?
I would expect at least discussions about moving Bedlam to Thanksgiving Friday, where OU-Nebraska was played nine times in the ’70s and ’80s.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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As I have to work on that Friday, I hope that doesn’t happen.