Everything Goes Wrong for No. 15 Oklahoma State in 45-3 Loss to UCF

Just about everything went wrong for No. 15 Oklahoma State as they lost to UCF on the road in Orlando, 45-3.

With the loss, the Cowboys moved to 7-3 on the season and 5-2 in Big 12 play. The Cowboys are now 0-27 in games when trailing by 24 points under Mike Gundy. It also marked just the second game in the AP Poll history, 1936, a team under .500 on the season beat an AP Top-15 team by more than 40 points. UCLA beat then No. 11 Texas 66-3 in 1997.

“I thought [UCF’s] coaches did a good job,” head coach Mike Gundy told the Cowboy Radio Network. “I thought they had good schemes on both sides of the ball. My job as a head coach is to evaluate everything going on and they did a good job of coaching. Then the perfect storm started; they hit us [big] a couple of times and then they got some 50/50 balls on us where we weren’t that far off in coverage, they made plays. Then we drive down the field, we’re moving just fine, and then we fumble. Then they hit us and score, they convert a couple of third and longs and score. Then we’re driving back down, in great shape, then we get a penalty and we still hit an in-route to Leon [Johnson III], [the ball] bounces off his helmet on the 12-yard line and they catch it. That perfect storm part, it happened to us, that’s just the way it is.”

The Cowboys couldn’t get anything going on the offensive side of the ball in the first half as quarterback Alan Bowman, while he completed 11 of 15 passes for 134 yards in the pouring rain, he also threw two interceptions. The Cowboys had one of the worst rushing performances we’ve seen in quite some time as they combined for just nine carries for -6 yards. Ollie Gordon II, who entered this game with 1,225 yards and 12 touchdowns, finished the first half with just seven carries for 10 yards and a lost fumble.

On the game, Bowman finished going 19-of-36 for 225 yards and three interceptions.

“I just think it was a lot of unfortunate events,” Oklahoma State quarterback Alan Bowman said after the game on the Cowboy Radio Network. “There’s a huge advantage of when you get the ball first, going down and scoring first because you put pressure immediately on the other team. That’s what we’ve been doing the past six weeks: if we get the ball first, we go down and score. We felt like they were in the driver’s seat and we were playing catch up Obviously, some unfortunate turnovers in the rain. It’s one of those games where kind of everything went wrong [for us] and everything went right for them.”

As for the run game, the Cowboys combined for just 52 yards and one fumble on 25 carries. Gordon II finished the game with 12 carries for 25 yards.

The defensive side wasn’t much better as they allowed the most first quarter points for the team this season, 14, and then 10 in the second quarter. By the break, the Knights had 320 yards of total offense, 207 yards through the air and 113 on the ground.

For the game, the Pokes gave up 592 yards, 299 through the air and 293 on the ground. The Knights averaged 24.9 yards per completion and 5.7 yards per carry.

The second half wasn’t much better. Despite Alex Hale making a field goal on the opening drive of the half for the Pokes, which was followed by a strip sack by Collin Oliver, recovered by Xavier Benson, Bowman threw his third interception of the day on the ensuing drive. With the drive starting on the UCF eight-yard line, RJ Harvey took it 92 yards for a touchdown, the second longest rush in the FBS this season and the longest run ever allowed by an OSU defense.

The Cowboys are back out on the road next week as they’ll head down to Houston to face to Cougars.