OSU hosts No. 24 K-State
An inability to score touchdowns cost Oklahoma State a chance to upset No. 11 Texas in Austin Saturday night.
The Cowboys (3-1, 0-1 in the Big 12) were edged by the Longhorns (3-1, 1-0), 30-36. OSU was near the goal line three times but came away with field goals instead of touchdowns.
“It’s a numbers game,” said OSU coach Mike Gundy. “You put a guy on (Tylan Wallace) and put a guy over the top, and you end up rushing the ball more than normal. We’ve seen this before. We just didn’t take advantage of our opportunities to score. We kicked a bunch of field goals. We went for fourth and one and didn’t get it, and we tried to fake field goal and didn’t get it.
“So let’s just say we convert half of those. It’s a much different game. We didn’t, but I’m saying it wasn’t necessarily all that. We just didn’t take advantage of our opportunities, in my opinion. You can’t kick field goals consistently like that and come down here and beat a team that’s — what are they ranked 10th or 12th or whatever? You’re not going to beat them down here kicking field goals, and that’s what we ended up doing.”
OSU quarterback Spencer Sanders hit 19 of 32 passing attempts but no touchdowns and two interceptions. OSU running back Chuba Hubbard rushed 37 times for 138 yards and two scores. OSU star receiver Tylan Wallace was held to 83 yards with five catches.
“I told Coach Gundy after the game, I said he’s got himself one in that quarterback,” Texas coach Tom Herman said. “Man, that guy is very, very difficult to defend in that offense and the way he can run the football.
“You try to guard Wallace, try to stop the run with Hubbard, and then he’s either running it or throwing it to somebody else.”
Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger hit 20 of 28 passes for 281 yards, four touchdowns and one interception. Texas running back Keaontay Ingram rushed 21 times for 115 yards while wide receiver Devin Duvernay had 12 passes for 108 yards.
“I thought (the OSU defense) played pretty good,” Gundy said. “Obviously, at the end there, we busted. We had some somebody for the quarterback. We talked about it, said they were going to maybe keep the ball, and we busted on the field at the end. We told them when we went out there, the quarterback’s going to keep the ball, but they got caught up in the fire there.
“But I think in the big picture, the defense played pretty good because offense really, we had some turnovers, put them in tough situations, and I thought the defense played pretty good overall. They’re a pretty good offense.”
OSU had dominated the series recently. Herman said beating OSU was a step in rebuilding this program.
“Well, probably that we continue to take steps towards being an elite program,” Herman said. “The elite teams that I’ve been a part of could win ugly or could win without their A-game. We certainly don’t want to make a habit of that because it will bite you, but, if you are — I mean, I don’t want to say looking for the silver lining in the cloud because we won the game. I don’t want to ever describe a win as a cloud.
“But if you do want to find a positive in it, we beat a really good football team. That was a team that went on the road all the way to the west coast and beat a team pretty handily to start the season. We knew the challenge that they posed to us.”
The schedule doesn’t lighten up for the Cowboys. OSU will host No. 24 Kansas State at 6 p.m. Saturday on Stillwater.
The Wildcats are undefeated with wins over Nicholls State (49-14); Bowling Green (52-0) and Mississippi State (31-24).
Wildcat quarterback Skylar Thompson is hitting 67.9 percent of his passes (36 of 53 attempts) for 486 yards. He has thrown four touchdown passes with no interceptions. James Gilbert is the leading K-State rusher with 277 total yards on 43 carries (6.4 yards per carry average).