Steele Sees Key to Cowboys Season as Success on the Road

STILLWATER – Each year in May I usually spend an hour or more on the phone with Phil Steele. I look forward to it. Steele has come to know that I am someone that knows Oklahoma State pretty well and the Big 12 overall. My picks in the fall have been above .500 against the spread every season, and most years they have been significantly over .500. This season I may have undersold Oklahoma State some. That, or Phil was oversold on a lot of other Big 12 teams. I’m not worried, but the unit rankings surprise me.

I guarantee Oklahoma State is not eighth in the league in receivers, not even close. On defense the linebackers are not eighth either. Special teams are above sixth with the best long snapper and even Steel had both Aussies in kicker Alex Hale and punter Tom Hutton on his third-team All-Big 12. Wait until he gets a load of Brennan Presley on returns. I didn’t mention running backs being sixth. We’ll revisit this after the season.

Phil Steele

This year Steele used his Big 12 picks from last season as an example of his accuracy in picking college football.

So much for that, I do agree with Steele that a real key to Oklahoma State will be whether they are road warriors. The Cowboys need to be ready to play on the road, something Mike Gundy teams have done well in his tenure. Gundy according to Steele’s numbers is 50-34 overall on the road and 28-20-2 as a road favorite and 17-16 as a road underdog.

“I think they’re going to have to win some big games on the road,” Steele said of the Cowboys. “They’ve got Boise, Texas, Iowa State West Virginia, Texas Tech on the road that makes for a pretty tough schedule, and they get Bedlam at home. That’s one of those games, you count on winning your home games, getting Bedlam at home is not that way unless it truly turns out to be that special season.”

Steele has Oklahoma State with only five returning starters on offense and eight on defense. Now, what I see and Steele doesn’t count is LD Brown and Dezmon Jackson both got starts last season and both are seniors. Center Danny Godlevske was a three-year starter at Miami of Ohio, so he is far from inexperienced. On defense, Christian Holmes started the last three games of the season and the bowl and he is a “super senior” that started games at Missouri. That brings my starting count up to 16 overall. The Cowboys also have, as previously mentioned, their long snapper, punter, and kicker returning.

Phil Steele’s All-Big 12 Cowboys

“Last year Oklahoma State was one of the most experienced teams in the country and this year they return 13 starters. That sounds like a lot of returning starters but in this year everybody has 18 or 19 starters coming back. Again, I think the key to Oklahoma State is they are going to have to go on the road and win some games. That Texas game and Iowa State game being played back-to-back weeks on the road Oct. 16 and 23, if they can come out of there with a pair of wins then they are a legitimate Big 12 title contender.”

Pat Kinnison - Chief Photographer

This blocked punt help turn the game around over Boise in the 44-21 in Stillwater.

That I agree with. Oklahoma State’s season starts with three solid non conference games. Missouri State went to the FCS playoffs and is better than the team that was crushed in the opener last season in Norman. Tulsa is going to be good again. The Boise State game on the road on their blue turf is huge. The Broncos are 9-1 at home vs. FBS non conference foes in the past seven seasons. They also have a road win over a downtrodden Florida State team.

“Let me tell you about Boise, they have two VHT, very highly touted quarterbacks in Hank Bachmeier, who was my 14th-ranked quarterback when he was signed and Jack Sears, who originally signed with USC and was my 17th-rated quarterback,” Steele explained. “They have two of those and rarely in the group of five do you have one VHT quarterback, much less two.”

I’ve been told that Boise has a clock in their locker room and weight room similar to what Oklahoma State and most teams have. However, while the Cowboys clock is counting down to the first game of the season against Missouri State, the clocks at Boise State are counting down to the Oklahoma State game on Sept. 18. The Broncos have a first-year head coach in Andy Avalos, who returns to Boise State after leaving following the 2018 season to go to Oregon as defensive coordinator.

“Talking to Coach Avalos he seems like the kind of guy that would hold a grudge,” Steele said. “He just seems to have a personality that he would be wired that way. That was his last year at Boise in 2018 when they lost that game 44-21. I could picture that (clocks counting down to game with Oklahoma State), and I sort of get that from talking to him.”

The road, starting with the trip that ends with blue turf, will be critically important to establishing Oklahoma State as a top team nationally or a team like many predict will be in the middle of the Big 12 pack.