For the fourth time in the last five seasons, Oklahoma State has won a bowl game.

Cowboys quarterback Spencer Sanders passed for 305 yards and four scores as OSU (8-3) edged past No. 18 Miami, 37-34, in the Cheez-It Bowl in Orlando, Florida. He hit 27 of 40 passes.

“The one area that (Sanders) gained big strides in this year was his composure,” said OSU coach Mick Gundy. “His composure on the field, off the field, on the sideline; if something didn’t go well, his composure was really, really good. That allows a quarterback to get better in my experience of doing this for 31 years. Quarterbacks have to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations and if they lose their composure, they are not comfortable. That’s where he’s made his biggest stride.

“So if he’ll continue to stay humble and work hard and train the way that he has in the off-season, then he’ll continue to have success at this level.”

Sanders was named MVP of the bowl game.

“Like I said before, this game is really actually played with 22 people,” Sanders said. “You’ve got 11 people on offense and 11 people on defense and you’ve got special teams, too. The credit goes to them, too. There is no MVP. Have you watched how our defense played this year? If you haven’t watched or seen that, you would know that’s a big reason why we’re here.

“So that MVP doesn’t just go to me. The defense stopped them when we needed to stop them and we scored when we needed to score and all I’m doing is listening to my coach and like I said just doing the little things and I’m glad I could get Brennen Presley the ball, got him his three touchdowns, Dillon got his touchdowns. But everybody got touches today I feel like. I was actually really excited we could spread the ball to everybody and spread the love.”

OSU’s Brennan Presley caught three touchdown passes and had six receptions for 118 yards. Sanders paced the Cowboys with 45 yards rushing.

“What (Brennan) has going for him is — well, Malcolm Rodriguez is sitting here next to me but they have the same characteristic,” said Gundy. “They love to play football. They are unselfish. They are tough. They are athletic and they are not scared and that’s what he is. He’s just going to get better and better with experience.

“He actually had a pretty significant injury in the Baylor game; one that in the past has kept players on the sidelines for as few as three weeks and up to four weeks. We actually encouraged him to maybe not play in this game based on his injury. And a week later, he just basically said, I want to play in this game. He started practicing and played. That’s what you get when you have a young man that loves to play the game. He’s not scared to compete.”

Sanders’ passing surprised the Hurricanes.

“I think we were a little caught off guard on how pass-heavy compared to what their normal MO had been,” said Miami coach Manny Diaz.  But … for whatever reason, just took us awhile to settle down and finally got a stop. Then we relaxed and started playing.”

OSU now has a record of 20-11 all-time in bowl games. This was OSU’s ts fourth bowl win in the past five seasons, its fifth bowl win in the past seven seasons and its eighth bowl win in the past 11 seasons. This was Gundy’s  31st career win vs. AP Top 25 opponents. Nick Saban of Alabama and Dabo Swinney of Clemson are the only other active coaches with 30 wins over AP Top 25 teams at their current schools.

“I was really happy for our players,” Gundy said. “This win might be as satisfying and gratifying win for me personally, selfishly, as any that I’ve had in my career. Just seeing the exhilaration and enjoyment on the players’s faces after the game. This was a really, really good college football game and we beat a good football team. Miami is very talented and very athletic. I don’t know if anybody has done their research, but the last four years, they have had 26 players that are in a draftable position for the NFL that. Will give you some kind of idea of what kind of talent and players that they have.”