The late-night dive to save the Chaos goalposts after Oklahoma

Dave Wilson, ESPN Personnel WriterNov 6, 2023, 07:00 AM ET Close Dave Wilson is an editor for ESPN.com considering that 2010. He previously operated at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.STILLWATER, Okla.– At 11 p.m. on the school of Oklahoma State, about 5 joyous hours after the Cowboys ended 118 years of Chaos history with a 27-24 victory over Oklahoma, a group of OSU trainees were doing a little film research study of their own. “We’ve analyzed the video,”one spectator stated, almost as if he has triangulated the collaborates.”Look, from this angle, you can see the tree and those two water fountains.”Call it CSI: Stillwater. But they weren’t resolving a criminal offense

. They were searching for a famous piece of OSU football history.Noah Campbell, a sophomore civil engineering significant from Tonkawa, Oklahoma, was shirtless, wearing shorts on a vigorous 63-degree night and standing neck-deep in Theta Pond, a picturesque 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 triumph, and Campbell was being navigated toward 2 water features by total strangers.”My uncle texted me about it,”Campbell’s friend Griffin Singleton stated.”I informed them that they tossed the goalposts in Theta Pond and he was like,’You must go get a piece of those goalposts. That ‘d be pretty famous.’ 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.”Editor’s Picks 2 Related Campbell took him up on the offer, stating his daddy had likewise texted him that he had a good friend who desired a piece of them, and he volunteered to do the

actual water excavation. Together, they made a trip to the pond however were discouraged by trainees resting on benches around it, who informed them the goalposts were long gone, paraded down the Strip right around the corner, past the Wood Nickel and the Copper Cent and all the other bars where revelers were still celebrating.But upon returning home, another buddy informed them that he believed they were still submerged at the bottom of the pond. They chose to make one more perform at it

.”I resembled, ‘Look, if you want to get in the pond right now and swim around and search for it, I’ll come and support you,'”Singleton said.” [Campbell]. looked at me [and] he resembled,’Yeah, if we find this, it ‘d be huge.'” Dave Wilson/ESPN Campbell said the water”

seemed like an ice bath,”and observers guided him wrong a number of times. But after about 15 minutes, after a group of Cowboys studied angles of a number of different TikTok and Instagram posts, Campbell lit up.”Griff … Griff … I discovered it, “he said, feeling

something with his foot on the mossy bottom of the pond. Four or five trainees rushed over to help as Campbell reached down and pulled a brilliant yellow piece of metal out of the water. It was Chaos all over once again. “It resembles a piece of the Berlin Wall!” a voice exclaimed from the darkness.Together, a group of recently forged friends started to raise the pole out.

It kept going. And going.”Is this one of the uprights?” they asked, and it appeared to be.Campbell and Singleton approximated it had to do with 30-35 feet long, way bigger than they anticipated. They whisked it away down the street, wary of being found by anybody else who ‘d attempt to make away with their bounty. “The No. 1 priority was simply leaving the streets as quick as possible,” Singleton said.Oklahoma State’s goalposts got tossed into Theta Pond on school after the Chaos win. But later on Saturday night, I stumbled across Noah Campbell, a trainee

who went for a swim to discover part of them -and prospered. pic.twitter.com/57UQcbVdPm!.?.!— Dave Wilson(@dwil)November 6, 2023 An agribusiness major with a small 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, protruding about five feet on each side, grateful he simply had a brief drive ahead to get home.It was another wonderful moment in a historical day for the jilted Cowboys. Their blood rivals, the Sooners, are leaving them behind for the SEC. The series has been uneven, with OSU generally outmanned by one of the most storied programs in college football history

, losing 91 of the rivalry games. They ‘d get one possibility to settle a multigenerational score. And a lot of 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 actually just missed 2 Bedlam games in Stillwater given that 1959, he approximates. He remembers freezing to his seat in the 1985 “Ice Bowl”game, a 13-0 loss to the Sooners, and wishing to go to the car in

the 2nd half, but his 13-year-old child, a Cowboys fan, called him a fair-weather fan. So he stuck it out, together with his kid and his kid’s friend, a Sooners fan. Bryan Terry/USA TODAY Sports On Saturday, Germany, who was walking gingerly, said he can’t deal with arena stairs extremely well any longer. But he’s no fair-weather fan, so he wouldn’t miss this one. He drove more than 2 hours from Tahlequah, Oklahoma

, to see the game with his kid and his kid’s friend, that same Sooners fan, happy to keep the tradition alive. Only this time, they needed to add three additional seats for his grandsons, his son’s young boys, who are all OSU students.” It’s a huge deal,”Germany said.”A really big offer.” Reece Hamar, who was sporting a fuzzy orange OSU bathrobe 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 household custom when it concerns the Pokes,”

he stated, adding that he’s still anticipating playing the Sooners in other sports. “Look at the Bedlam series, other than football,” Hamar stated.” We’re going to win. I mean, we won it 8 of the last 9 years.

“But this day had to do with football. He understands the history. And Saturday implied everything.”We’re going to have 5,000-6,000 days up until OU has actually beaten

us after today, “Hamar stated, expecting a long space in another game between the two.” So that’s something to hang your hat on.

“The triumph came from the steady hands of an unlikely hero. Quarterback Alan Bowman remains in his 6th season after two times suffering a collapsed lung while playing at Texas Tech for three seasons before being benched and moving to Michigan, where he was a backup who appeared in 5 games in two seasons. He began this season at Oklahoma State in a three-way quarterback rotation before seizing the task and tossing for 334 yards Saturday. Bowman will end his career going 1-0 in Chaos.”Clearly the record alters one method which’s great,”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 chance for everybody in Oklahoma to talk about– well, the only one they have to discuss is the last one– and we won it. At the end of the day, you can just say

,’Well, what took place in the last one?’And we all understand what took place. “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 warded off, with Stoops being stopped two lawns brief 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 topic of a controversial no-call on a prospective pass interference in the end zone previously. It was OSU’s day.Afterward, fans flooded the field, covering every inch of the surface area. The speakers roared”Must’ve Been a Cowboy” by Sooners fan Toby Keith and”We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”by Taylor Swift. The goalposts in some way made their way out of the stadium with high walls all the method around. A grown male ran up to OSU players yelling,”THANK YOU! THANK YOU!”before looking to the skies.In his press conference, Mike Gundy, the previous OSU quarterback in his 33rd appearance in the competition, celebrated the “once-in-a-lifetime present”his players had actually delivered to “Oklahoma State individuals.” After he was ended up at the podium, he took a seat and talked to reporters for a prolonged duration, relaxed and free-flowing.”I’m having fun, “Gundy stated.”One hundred and eighteen years. It’s worth it. “Individuals lined up to take images with the stump that remained when the goalposts were ripped down.

Newscasters did their postgame shows beside it.Andy Stevenson, a member of the Paddle Individuals, the OSU spirit group that bangs its wooden paddles on the wall, had lined up 2 1/2 hours before the game, stating it was the most people he ‘d ever seen at Boone Pickens Stadium that early– by a long shot.He also ended up being among

the little groups helping Campbell navigate the pond, assessing what the day implied to him.”It was insane,”Stevenson said.”I imply, to be part of the last Bedlam and to win? That’s ridiculous. It’s my senior year. I desired nothing more than this.” Numerous students were lined up trying to get into bars on The Strip, uninformed that one street over at the very same time, those goalposts were being blended away. At 11:08 p.m., an only”Boomer!”rang out in a parking area on Jefferson Ave. It got no response.Campbell and Singleton, meanwhile, had actually just headed home to carve up a piece of neon yellow aluminum pipeline that was more matched for a museum than the bottom of a pond.” I’ll take a piece and then I’ll most likely provide it to friends and family,”Singleton stated.”This is not just OSU history. This is college football history.”