Last year, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State also met in a de facto Big 12 title game. But by the time the two squads stepped on the field, it wasn’t quite a level fight.

Spearheaded by Heisman-contending quarterback Baker Mayfield and the league’s top defense, the Sooners arrived in Stillwater on a roll. The Cowboys, however, with quarterback Mason Rudolph injured, were fading. As a result, Oklahoma cruised to a blowout win over the Pokes on its way to a Big 12 championship and a trip to the College Football Playoff.

This time around, the stakes in Bedlam are enormous once again.

But in two weeks, the Sooners won’t be the only side that will enter with major momentum.

“They’re kinda playing like we are,” said Mayfield, who said he watched the Cowboys dismantle TCU on Saturday just before his Sooners did the same to West Virginia. “They kinda had a rough start but keep getting better and better, just like we are. Good for them.

“It’s the right time of the year to play well.”

Indeed, with neither having lost since September, the Sooners and Cowboys are playing their best football of the year going into Bedlam, which has improbably catapulted both 9-2 programs back into the playoff discussion.

Mike Gundy and Bob Stoops have their teams peaking at the right time. Brett Deering/Getty Images

Saturday, in perhaps its most complete performance since routing fourth-ranked Baylor in 2013, Oklahoma State debuted in the top 10 of the human polls for the first time this season by walloping the Horned Frogs 31-6, handing Gary Patterson his worst home loss ever at TCU.

Justice Hill and Chris Carson, who have hit their stride as a rushing duo, combined to run for 300 yards, while wideout Chris Lacy continued to surge alongside James Washington and Jalen McCleskey with a series of speculator catches.

Defensively, the Pokes were even more dominant.

Led by Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year candidate Vincent Taylor, they twice stuffed TCU inside the 5-yard line on fourth down. The Horned Frogs’ only points, in fact, came courtesy of a muffed punt deep in Oklahoma State territory.

“The definition of getting your butt kicked,” Patterson said.

Oklahoma exacted similar carnage in Morgantown.

The Sooners scored the game’s first five touchdowns to take a 34-0 lead in the second quarter, effectively emptying out Milan-Puskar Stadium before halftime. After a mild West Virginia rally, they pulled away to win 56-28.

The last month, Mayfield, Joe Mixon and Dede Westbrook have been carrying one of the nation’s most unstoppable offenses. But though all three were terrific again in Morgantown, bruising back Samaje Perine gave the Sooners a boost in his second game back from a midseason leg injury with 160 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 31 carries.

Oklahoma is now averaging 7.43 yards per play. No Power 5 offense is averaging more.

“The way we’re playing right now, we deserve some (playoff) consideration,” said Mayfield, who himself has a terrific chance to break the FBS record for passing efficiency in a season. “Yeah, we lost two of the first three. But those weren't bad teams. We keep getting better and better every week. It’s about who’s playing best at the time."

Mayfield is right.

There’s no comparing this Sooners team to the one from September, when Oklahoma fell to Houston and Ohio State. Yes, the defense remains erratic. But Westbrook's return to health from a preseason hamstring injury that hobbled him against the Cougars and Buckeyes has transformed the Sooners offensively. Despite totaling only 154 receiving yards through September, Westbrook now leads all Power 5 players in receiving while becoming the favorite to win the Biletnikoff Award.

“Everybody wants to say they’re not very good because of what happened earlier in the year,” West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said of the Sooners. “They are a different football team right now than they were earlier in the year.”

The same can be said for Oklahoma State.

Though Bob Stoops joined Mike Gundy over the weekend in calling the game a win, the Cowboys were still dreadful in the controversial loss to Central Michigan, which scored a game-winning Hail Mary on a play that shouldn’t have counted.

Two weeks later at Baylor, Hill fumbled away the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter of his first appearance as a featured back.

But Hill has since settled in and Saturday broke Thurman Thomas’ Oklahoma State true freshman rushing record. Carson, meanwhile, has returned with purpose from a broken thumb to provide the Pokes with a dynamic one-two punch out of the backfield. Over his last five games, Carson has scored seven touchdowns; before that, he’d scored just five in his Oklahoma State career.

“I’m very proud of our running backs and the way they’re running,” Gundy said. “It makes it a lot easier to sleep knowing we can run the ball a little.”

The addition of an effective running game has taken pressure off Rudolph, who now has thrown 25 touchdowns with just four interceptions. He's has also taken fewer hits, which has kept him healthy.

As a result, unlike last year, Oklahoma State is humming headed into Bedlam.

“Last year we got beat up and were very tired. ... We didn’t play well,” Gundy said of his team down last year's homestretch.

That isn’t the case this time.

The Sooners are on fire. So, too, are the Cowboys.

In other words, Bedlam at its best.

“They’re a really good football team,” Stoops said. “Playing really well right now -- like I like to think we are.”