Oklahoma State Snaps Two-Game Losing Streak With 20-14 Win Over Iowa State

STILLWATER – Oklahoma State, led by Spencer Sanders in the fourth quarter, came back from a four-point deficit to beat Iowa State, 20-14.

With the win, the Cowboys move to 7-3 overall and 4-3 in Big 12 play.

Other than a handful of plays sprinkled throughout three quarters, the Cowboy offense had struggled to move the ball. They combined for 161 yards through three quarters and had scored just one touchdown. After a second interception by Gunnar Gundy, redshirt senior quarterback Spencer Sanders, who missed the Kansas game with an injury, entered the game and immediately changed the course of the game.

He hit Jaden Nixon for four yards, Bryson Green for seven yards, Nixon again for 10 yards, Brennan Presley for 16 yards, Green again for six yards and picked up six yards down the right side of the field to bring up a 2nd and 4.

He’d cap the drive with an impressive play fake, in which he’d take the ball up the middle, before pulling up and hitting a wide-open Jaden Nixon from 14 yards out for the touchdown to put the Pokes back on top, 17-14, with 9:18 left in the fourth quarter.

"Spencer (Sanders) has played 50 games here,” said head coach Mike Gundy. “Sometimes when they know a guy is playing that's not 100%, they're like 'Okay I'll fight for that guy,' it's just human nature. You know when we brought him in at the end of the third, we said we're just going to throw it on every down, and we couldn't run the ball. From that point forward, we just felt like we were going to throw it on every down." 

Gunnar Gundy led the Cowboys in passing with 103 yards and one touchdown on 5-of-12 passing, but Sanders was the more impressive of the two performances as he went 9-of-13 for 84 yards and one touchdown in less than one quarter of play.

Dominic Richardson led the way in rushing for the Pokes with 41 yards on 14 carries.

Sanders’ confidence bled over the defensive side of the ball on the Cyclones’ ensuing drive as the Pokes forced a three-and-out, including a sack for a loss of 10 yards by Collin Oliver, the first sack of the day for the Pokes.

After a couple of stalled drives, kicker Tanner Brown hit his second field goal of the game, a 40-yarder, to put the Pokes up six, 20-14, with just over four minutes left to go in the game.

The Cowboy defense had the task of coming up with a stop on the next drive. They were bailed out a bit when Jaylin Noel, who was wide open, dropped a pass from Hunter Dekkers for what surely would’ve been a touchdown. Dekkers hit Xavier Hutchinson for a 16-yard first down, before being sacked by Brock Martin for a loss of two, followed by an incompletion to Darren Wilson. Jabbar Muhammad got the Pokes off the field with an impressive pass breakup on 3rd and long, which was followed by a false start and delay of game on the Cyclones to give the Pokes the ball back on their own 36-yard line following a 37-yard punt.

It would all come down to the final drive of the game for the OSU defense.

After a punt after a three-and-out, ISU had 2:09 to drive the length of the field. Starting on their own 28-yard line and with no timeouts, Dekkers moved methodically down the field to the OSU 23-yard line.

After three incompletions, Mike Gundy called a timeout on 4th and 10 with :25 left. Dekkers was flushed out of the pocket and for the second time in the game, Collin Oliver dropped Dekkers for a sack, this time for 11-yards, to seal the game for the Pokes.