The Oklahoma State losing streak has now reached eight games, as Texas Tech rode out of Stillwater Saturday with a 56-48 win over the Cowboys.

This loss and the fact that OSU will miss out on going to a bowl game this year, has left many Cowboys fans wondering if Mike Gundy will be the next college coach in the state to get fired. Tulsa announced on Sunday that head coach Kevin Wilson had been let go.

After losing a heartbreaker last week against Colorado, the Red Raiders win this week improved their record to 7-4 overall, 5-3 Big 12. The Cowboys dropped to 3-8, 0-8 and are the only team in the Big 12 without a conference win.

“Proud of our guys,” said Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire. “Looking back on this year, there are going to be some things that we missed out on, but there are also going to be things that we are doing to push the program ahead. One of them is that this is our first winning record on the road since I got to Texas Tech. I’m really proud of our guys for doing that.”

A disgruntled Gundy addressed the media after the game and was not happy with his team’s performance.

“All right, so we couldn’t get off the field on third down again,” Gundy said. “I knew it wasn’t good; they were 14-22, but so many opportunities on third down we couldn’t get off the field. We weren’t very good on third down at 2-9.”

Gundy said it was the mistakes and turnovers that cost his team the game.

“We had a tough day on special teams,” Gundy said. “That’s what I told the team, is that they practiced well enough for two weeks, and they played well enough to win the game. They just had critical errors, which is very uncommon for us here at Oklahoma State, we had critical errors three or four that really cost us the game. So, when you look at it, it gets right down to it, the third downs, and we had three or four critical errors. Couple on special teams, couple of snaps we didn’t get lined up correct on the long run on fourth down, critical error. The guys played well enough to win, we just couldn’t get off the field on third down, had some critical errors.”

Texas Tech was led by quarterback Behren Morton who completed 37-of-53 passes for 401 yards and four touchdowns. Tahj Brooks carried the ball 28 times for 133 yards and three touchdowns. Brooks also caught a touchdown pass. His fourth touchdown of the game came with 6:12 left in the fourth quarter, giving the Red Raiders the lead for good, at 49-42.

On the next OSU possession, the ball was fumbled in their own end zone and recovered by Jacob Rodriguez for another Texas Tech touchdown, giving the Red Raiders a 56-42 lead.

OSU scored a late touchdown when Maealiuaki Smith connected with Rashod Owens on a 10-yard touchdown pass, but Rodriguez sealed the win for Texas Tech when he intercepted a Smith pass with seven seconds remaining in the game.

“I was pleased with the way we rushed the ball,” Gundy said. “I was pleased with the way the young quarterback played.”

Gundy was asked if thinks Smith should have started at quarterback earlier in the season.

“Well, he’s only been practicing with us for a month and so there could be questions about that, but he started the year on the fourth team,” Gundy said. “Whether we know, if you could or not, you’ll never know. That’s something that just is not going to ever come through just based on the way it is. You’re not going to take a true freshman and start giving him reps with the ones or twos when he walks right in from high school. Without watching the video, I thought he competed and sat in the pocket, if the pocket started to collapse, he stayed in, made throws downfield and he missed some throws. We saw that, right? We had it three or four times. We had guys that were running pretty open, and he missed the throws. But overall, I thought his poise was really good, and I thought he ran the ball effectively.”

Smith was making his first career start in place of benched quarterback Alan Bowman. Smith completed 26-of-36 pass attempts for 326 yards.

Ollie Gordon II led OSU with 15 carries for a season-high 156 yards and three touchdowns. He also caught three passes for 30 yards and threw one pass to Rashod Owens for 27 yards.

OSU travels to Colorado for a Friday morning matchup with the Buffaloes at 11:00 a.m. Central. The game will be broadcast on ABC.