Robinson ready for big rivalry

He’ll start for Oklahoma State Saturday against
Oklahoma.

STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) — There used to be a special seating arrangement for the Bedlam rivalry at Zac Robinson’s house.

The Oklahoma State cheering section was downstairs, where his mother and two sisters would watch the game on television. Robinson, his father and his brother would stay upstairs and root for the Sooners.

“OSU would score, and my mom and sisters would come up doing the wave and kind of taunting us in our face,” Robinson said. “We were actually kind of mad. I don’t know if they knew that, but we were actually really mad.”

The family dynamic is a bit different now, as Robinson prepares to start against No. 10 Oklahoma (9-2, 5-2 Big 12) for the first time Saturday. Throughout his childhood, he’d envisioned himself playing on Owen Field — just not for the opposing team.

“I always dreamed growing up to play for OU,” Robinson said. “And then that kind of switched and I realized that OSU was an up-and-coming program and a great program as well.”

Robinson played in last year’s Bedlam game in a special package when the Cowboys used an empty backfield, and he took over as Oklahoma State’s starting quarterback early this season when Bobby Reid was benched. Reid was the player coach Mike Gundy said he was trying to defend when he screamed at a newspaper columnist earlier this season.

He’s already broken the school’s season record for total offense, with 3,122 yards, and he ranks third on the charts for passing and rushing in a season by a quarterback at Oklahoma State (6-5, 4-3).

Last week, he became the first Cowboys quarterback since Brent Blackman in 1972 to run for at least 100 yards three times in a season.

“He has the it factor. He’s a player,” offensive coordinator Larry Fedora said. “It wouldn’t matter what I was doing with Zac, to be honest with you. If I wanted to sit back and drop back and throw it 60 times a game, he would be successful doing it. He is that type of kid. He is that type of quarterback.

“If we wanted to grind it out with him and do nothing else, he could do that. He’s going to handle whatever offense you throw at him, and that makes it easy on me.”

Although he came to Oklahoma State out of a Colorado high school, Robinson grew up with a Bedlam background — half orange-and-black, half crimson-and-cream.

“I know his mom went to school here and she was a cheerleader, and I know his dad went to school at OU and he was a track athlete. And I know he gets his ability from his mom. I know that,” Gundy said, throwing a few lighthearted Bedlam barbs. “His dad’s a nice guy, but I don’t know where it came from other than his mom.”

Robinson said his mother takes the Bedlam rivalry more seriously and wins all the arguments on the matter, but “I can remember my dad being pretty ticked when OSU played the spoiler” for the Sooners’ national championship hopes in 2001.