Unbeaten Oklahoma State traces stellar run to key win a season ago

STILLWATER, Okla. — All great stories start somewhere. Oklahoma State’s begins nearly a year ago today, with Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops’ decision to re-punt to the Cowboys with less than a minute left in the pair’s annual rivalry — called Bedlam, and for good reason.

Even after Oklahoma State linebacker Jordan Sterns ran into the Sooners’ punter, drawing a 5-yard penalty, Oklahoma could’ve elected to spot the Cowboys at their own 15-yard line, forcing an untested offense to go 85 yards to provide the game-tying score. Hindsight helps, but let’s remember: OSU was out of timeouts and relying on a then-freshman quarterback, Mason Rudolph, making just his second career start.

Looking for extra yardage to protect his defense, Stoops sent his special teams back on the field. OSU running back Tyreek Hill fielded the ensuing punt near his own goal line and ran 92 yards to tie the game, telling reporters afterward that tears began to roll down his cheeks midway through the return.

The Cowboys won in overtime to secure bowl eligibility. Beat Washington in the Cactus Bowl to net a winning season; Oklahoma would lose to Clemson in bowl play and limp into the offseason. Fortunes changed on one decision, on one play. It was “a program-changer,” Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy said.

“It changed the attitude and the perception of everything here,” Gundy told Paste BN Sports. “It was clearly the biggest win for us. It got our players regenerated and it got us started.”

For undefeated Oklahoma State, owners of one of the most impressive wins in all of college football, this is where a push for the College Football Playoff began. It changed things for this program. Saturday night against TCU validated that change.

And what changed, really? Nearly everything. The youthful roster’s rise in experience and confidence. The continued and subtle development of an offensive philosophy. The embrace on defense of a style and mindset conducive to success in the Big 12 Conference. “We’re a little different,” Gundy said.

That Oklahoma State will find itself in the middle of the championship conversation isn’t an accident; it’s by design, as part of a period of explosive growth triggered nearly a season ago.

“Everybody has confidence,” safety Tre Flowers said. “Everybody is just gaining more and more confidence each week, and we’re on our way to great things.”

Offensively, the Cowboys’ system is a marriage of a base concept with tweaks installed by a run of talented offensive coordinators — Dana Holgorsen, Todd Monken and Mike Yurcich — each of whom brought his own flavor to the system. The Cowboys’ attack has become a fusion of varying thoughts and ideas, with specific game plans often dictated by personnel.

The Cowboys saw the opportunity for big plays in the passing game against TCU, Yurcich said, and went downfield to attack the Horned Frogs’ secondary. Rudolph completed 16 of 24 attempts for 352 yards and five touchdowns, averaging 14.7 yards per attempt, while the offense mounted five touchdown drives lasting less than a minute — with the offense’s longest scoring drive spanning just 73 seconds.

It’s on defense, however, that OSU might separate itself from the rest of the Big 12. The league as a whole is driven by offense: quick offenses, high-potency offenses, placing defenses in both catch-up mode and the rearview mirror. As led by coordinator Glenn Spencer, the Cowboys don’t aim for perfection; they aim to make the opposition work, play by play and drive by drive, measuring success with metrics unseen on most box scores.

By normal standards, TCU had its way with the Cowboys’ defense. The Horned Frogs gained 663 total yards and 36 first downs, converting nearly half of their third-down tries and dominating time of possession. But they ran 110 plays, more than doubling OSU’s 53-play output. The postgame box score is just scrap paper for Spencer, who literally doodles on the page while speaking to the media.

“I want someone to look at the stats and tell me we had a bad game so I can laugh it off,” Spencer said. “For these guys, this was outstanding.”

Instead, the Cowboys care about points per opponents’ possessions. The Horned Frogs scored 29 points on 17 drives, averaging 1.7 points per offensive possession. That’s a little high for Spencer, who aims to keep offenses to between 1.2 and 1.5 points per possession in each game, but it’s survivable — especially when the Cowboys’ own offense averages almost a first down on every snap.

“It’s 110 plays today and 600 yards,” Gundy said. “The point is, that’s 100 damn plays. That’s a lot of plays to defend. In this league, that’s the average. We know that there’s going to be possibly 200 plays in a game, offense and defense. In other leagues it’s not going to be that way. In this league it is.”

So the Cowboys take a step back, trading aggressiveness and complexity — with its inherent risk of allowing big plays — for simplicity. Scheme-wise, there’s little OSU can throw at Big 12 offenses that they haven’t seen before; there’s nothing you can do that someone hasn’t thought about already. Instead, the defense is almost basic: OSU wants to run to the football, bend but not break, utilize its overall team speed in space, and force turnovers.

“We’ve had the same motto all year, WTIB, which means ‘we’re taking it back,’” Flowers said. “It’s been the same every game, every week because we have to force turnovers as a defense to be great. That’s our goal. It’s been that way from the beginning.”

Well, not necessarily. The mentality has long been there for Oklahoma State, but not the ability to consistently translate mindset into production — especially for all but the final two games of last season. The program needed a jumpstart; beating Oklahoma last November provided the boost OSU needed.

Now, with three games left in the regular season, the Cowboys control their own destiny. Baylor comes to Boone Pickens Stadium, as does Oklahoma. Winning out might send OSU to the Playoff. That part of the story, at least, remains unwritten.

“It was a great win for us, obviously,” Gundy said. “We’ll enjoy this one, move forward and go back to work tomorrow.”

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