Pistols Misfiring: Why Oklahoma State is Struggling
PISTOLS MISFIRING: WHY OKLAHOMA STATE IS STRUGGLING – Oklahoma State will play a football game in Stillwater on Saturday against Arizona State. And, as everyone expected, the game means bowl eligibility for one of the two teams.
As nobody expected: that team is Arizona State.
While the Sun Devils have risen to a respectable 5-2 in their first year in the Big 12, the Cowboys have collapsed. Oklahoma State is dead last in the Big 12, the only school in the league without a win.
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Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy hasn’t won fewer than three games in the Big 12 since his second year in Stillwater. But the Cowboys will need a minor miracle to get there, with all four of their remaining games against teams who are 5-3 or better. This was supposed to be where things got easier for Oklahoma State after a rough start, but there’s no relief in sight.
Here’s a dive into the Cowboys’ woes.
Getting Away From the Ground Game
Last year, Ollie Gordon was a breakout story for the Cowboys. Oklahoma State was in big trouble before Gordon got going, and the Cowboys ended up running their way to the Big 12 title game, where they finally lost to Texas.
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This year, Oklahoma State’s been rather weak at running the ball. The Cowboys had most of the same players back, but it’s just not working. Gordon is down to a pedestrian 4.2 yards per carry — good for the NFL, not so much in college — and the Cowboys rank 14th in the Big 12 at running the ball.
The two teams behind them are TCU and Colorado. The Frogs lead the Big 12 in passing and the Buffaloes don’t even try to run the football some games. Oklahoma State ranks third in passing behind them, but the Cowboys have a problem the Frogs and Buffaloes don’t: they lead the Big 12 in interceptions.
Say what you will about Colorado and Deion Sanders — Lord knows I have — but the Buffaloes don’t make mistakes with the football. The Cowboys do, and it’s why Colorado is bowl-eligible and Oklahoma State’s in last place.
The Cowboys Aren’t Playing Collectively
Mike Gundy raised some eyebrows when he said that the time for negotiating was over at the start of the season, and it was time to play football. While that wasn’t true, as UNLV showed, it was an indication of a real problem: Gundy appears to have a selfish team on his hands.
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This can happen far more frequently in the NIL era, as players now have more incentive to think about the me over the we. And that can work in some sports, but it doesn’t work at all in football. This is the most team-centric sport at the college level, because it requires 11 players working as one to make anything happen. You can win with one or two big stars in basketball, and an ace pitcher with a big slugger can take you a decent way in baseball. But in football, if you’re deficient in any area, it will get exploited.
The Big 12 Has Improved
There really are no weak spots in the Big 12 this year. It’s not like the ACC, where Florida State keeps inventing new ways to lose and California and Stanford have proven cannon fodder. The additions to the Big 12 have played good football. Utah, surprisingly, has been the big disappointment, and that’s because Cam Rising can’t stay healthy.
But Kansas has slid to 1-4, because the Jayhawks keep managing to lose tight contests. Arizona’s not as strong as last year, and UCF is also at 1-4 despite playing decently. There really are no weak links in the league, which means there’s no place for Oklahoma State to recover.
Gundy Might No Longer Be the Right Man
Mike Gundy has done a lot of good in Stillwater. He has made what was mostly an afterthought into a respected program nationally. The Cowboys have usually been good, occasionally great and once in a while exceptional. I remain convinced that Oklahoma State was the best team in 2011 and would have won the title if a plane crash hadn’t killed the school’s women’s basketball coach on the night of their loss to Iowa State, giving us the LSU-Alabama rematch nobody asked for.
But Gundy might be similar to Virginia coach Tony Bennett: a man of his era. Bennett recognized he’s not fit to coach in the NIL era, where he’s got to worry about money-making opportunities to get the players he needs. He might resurface at a lower-tier school, where he can win 20 games a year with mid-tier guys and scare the living daylights out of a name opponent. But his days of chasing national championship dreams are definitely over.
Gundy is still a good football coach. But he needs the right type of kids to coach his way. And that might no longer be possible in Stillwater. If Gundy wants to keep coaching, he’d likely do better at an FCS school, where he can just coach his system and not have to worry about any of the NIL stuff. If things keep going wrong at Oklahoma State, a school in the Southland would be brilliant to give Gundy a call.
But at Oklahoma State, Gundy might need someone brought in to help with the NIL side of things. What’s happening isn’t working, and if he doesn’t make changes, there’s going to be an awkward conversation coming.
