Oklahoma State dropped to 1-2 on the season after a pretty embarrassing 19-12 loss to Tulsa on Friday night, and looking at the conference schedule ahead, a 1-win season is not just possible for the Cowboys, it’s probable.
According to ESPN’s Matchup Predictor, Oklahoma State’s best odds in their remaining games are a 17.7% chance at home against Kansas State on November 15th and a 17.2% chance at home against Houston on October 11th. Seven of the Big 12’s sixteen teams remain undefeated, and Oklahoma State and Kansas State are the only teams in the conference with a losing record. As bad as this season has already been, it’s only going to get worse.
A rough start to the season is not a direct indicator of what will happen later down the road, but the Cowboys have not shown much of anything that leads me to believe that they can turn things around any time soon. The offense is inept in basically every area of the game, and the defense finally put some stops together in the second half against the Golden Hurricane, but literally every team left on the schedule is a far better team than Tulsa. It’s time for Cowboy fans to face the music: Oklahoma State football has reached a new low.
As the state of football in Stillwater has progressively gotten worse over the last couple of seasons, I have watched and listened as Oklahoma State fans who have been around for decades have talked about “how bad it used to be,” and it’s true: there have been plenty of dark days for the Cowboys. While I am only old enough really to remember football on this side of the year 2000, I’ve felt my share of pain.
I remember the seasons of only 3 or 4 wins.
I remember Josh Fields throwing Rashaun Woods a touchdown in the corner of the end zone in Norman in 2001 to derail Oklahoma’s hopes of returning to the BCS National Championship, and that was the highlight of a losing season.
I remember the Iowa State upset in 2011 that ultimately left Oklahoma State out of the National Championship.
I remember the close losses to Oklahoma in Bedlam that seemed to happen year after year.
Still, none of those FEELINGS of low compare to the FACTS that put Cowboy football at an all-time low in the present day.
Save the “way back when” commentary about 0-win seasons, failing to make a bowl game, and not even competing when it came to Bedlam. Those were low moments in Oklahoma State football history, but as Mike Gundy so dramatically turned around the yearly expectations in Stillwater, so did the level of disappointment for fans when it would all come crashing down. I remember being a kid and hoping for a bowl game because we weren’t used to it. Now I’m at the point where I’m hoping for a bowl game just so we can stay relevant.
Times have changed in college football, and gone are the days of Oklahoma State being at the forefront of adaptation. The Cowboys used to be known for leading the trends in offensive creativity, and now the offense is the laughing stock of FBS football.
It’s much easier to point fingers and talk in hypotheticals than it is to offer solutions. While the obvious choice for a big move is to fire Mike Gundy, it’s going to take a lot more than a coaching change to flip the script and get back to winning games. The culture of Cowboy football needs to change, and the standard of play has to go up. Gundy’s inability to adapt to the modern times of NIL and the transfer portal has put Oklahoma State behind the times, and it’s not going to be a quick recovery.
Oklahoma State football cannot get any worse because this is as bad as it gets. Sure, they can continue losing, choosing to accept their fate, and it will be absolutely miserable for fans for who knows how long. We can end up right back in the “dark days” of consistent losing seasons with no hope of being competitive in what is considered a wide-open Big 12. But that’s not the Cowboy football that I’ve known and loved for so long.
When something doesn’t work, you try something different. Changes shouldn’t be made just for the sake of making changes, though. Each decision must be intentional. So if the necessary move is to fire Mike Gundy, that’s fine by me, but the new hire must be on purpose and with the future in mind. If more focus is going to shift toward the transfer portal and NIL—as it probably should—it needs to be to go after the right guys, not just the most appealing ones.
For Oklahoma State to return to a respected position in college football, the seemingly apathetic approach to the game must change into one of intentional focus. If that doesn’t happen sometime soon, though, I fear that we Cowboy fans should get comfortable with our current location: rock bottom.