'Just A Miserable Night': Remembering The 1985 Bedlam Ice Bowl

The 1985 Bedlam game, later dubbed the ‘Ice Bowl,’ is remembered for its icy conditions and the University of Oklahoma’s 13-0 win.

News 9’s Sports Director Dean Blevins was covering the game that night for a Tulsa cable show called Oklahoma Sportscene. Blevins also played for the Sooners from 1974-1977.

“You can’t really pick a top game without picking 1985 because it was the Ice Bowl,” Blevins said. “All the eyes of the nation were on Stillwater, Oklahoma, once again.”

The weather that day offered freezing temperatures and a slippery field.

“In terms of wind chill, it was around 20, but it got lower than that,” Blevins said. “It was just a miserable night. The players talked about feeling like it was just a tug-of-war, or they were playing flat footed because you were slip, sliding away.”

Blevins considers the weather a greater opponent for OU in 1985 than Oklahoma State.

“Oklahoma’s biggest concern, although they respected OSU, was the fact that in those types of conditions, a couple of bad bounces [...] could knock you out of having a chance to win a national championship,” Blevins said.

In 1985, Oklahoma went on to win a national championship. In that historic season, the Ice Bowl is remembered as a harrowing game.

“It was a terrific ballgame in the sense that no one died,” Blevins said. “And in the end, Oklahoma did manage to win by holding OSU to 131 total yards on an ice rink.”