Cowboys Move Up the List of Schools Bullish on Bowls

STILLWATER – For Oklahoma State every season, the record is extended as the Cowboys, under the leadership of Mike Gundy, have gone to a bowl game every season since his second as head coach. It started in moderation with six wins the first two bowl seasons leading to trips to Shreveport and a 34-31 win over Alabama in the PetroSun Independence Bowl and a 49-33 win over Indiana in the Insight Bowl in Arizona.

There have been trips to the Cotton Bowl (twice), Fiesta Bowl and Sugar Bowl for New Year’s Six trips and there have been a couple of years where a win late in the season clinched a bowl bid.

Prior to Gundy at Oklahoma State, the best Oklahoma State had done was three bowl seasons in a row with Les Miles (Houston-2002, Cotton-2003, Alamo-2004). Oklahoma State is up to 15 straight bowl seasons.

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Bobby Reid quarterbacked OSU in the bowl win that started the streak in 2006.

After the 37-34 win over Miami, Fla. on Dec. 29 the Cowboys have moved up the list of schools with consecutive seasons finishing with a bowl game. It is a prestigious list.  That list no longer is reliant on winning six games in a season, but with this pandemic year and the battle college football has waged with COVID-19, there were health issues and the diligence needed to keep teams playing that impacted the bowls. In fact, all teams this season were eligible for bowl bids no matter what the record.

The bowls still issued bids 

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The Cheez-It brings OSU to 15 straight bowls.

to programs that could bring in television numbers and make ESPN and the bowl sponsors happy. Still, some programs high on the list couldn’t make it happen, including the streak leader Virginia Tech. The Hokies had been to a bowl every season since 1993. Virginia Tech finished 5-6 but could have kept their streak going except had issues toward the end of the season with COVID-19 and opted out. Another prominent member of the list at fourth with 20 bowl trips in succession, defending national champion LSU wouldn’t have qualified with a 5-5 record, but also was dealing with COVID-19 and player apathy.

Here is the current list of top schools with bowl streaks:

* Mississippi State went to a bowl in 2020 and defeated Tulsa, but did so with a losing record that in a normal season would not have resulted in a bowl invitation.

# Iowa was invited and accepted a bid to play Missouri in the Music City Bowl in Nashville, but the game was cancelled due to Missouri having a COVID-19 outbreak.