Garret Rangel's "Out A While," But Balled Out, as Did Alan Bowman
Certainly not the outcome you wanted out in Provo, UT, as Oklahoma State lost in the final minute as BYU quarterback, Jake Retzlaff, drove the Cougars down the field in eight plays, 75 yards, capped off with the game-winning 35-yard touchdown pass to Darius Lassiter.
We’ll be talking about the defensive deficiencies in a later article, so we’ll be focusing this article on OSU’s quarterback play.
Garret Rangel got the start over Alan Bowman, and while it took him a bit to get his passing game going, Rangel was really good on the ground. His 16-yard rush on the second play of the game led to three-straight rushes from Ollie Gordon II for 59 yards and a touchdown, including the 50-yard scoring rush.
Before he left the game with a shoulder injury, Rangel had five rushes for 77 yards, which really opened up the offense.
“When you have the threat of a quarterback potentially keeping the ball, it changes your offense,” head coach Mike Gundy told Robert Allen after the game. “We came in with the intention of running Rangel four or five times in the first quarter, and he hit gashes. So, then, [BYU] has to now have some responsibility for [Rangel], which opens up your other run game. It’s just a numbers game in football, so that’s where we’ve been lacking, and we should’ve been better. So, Rangel’s out and Bowman’s playing and Bowman has to run the ball. He’s got to keep it like he did out here and get four, five, six yards to loosen up and add an extra dimension to a numbers game. We’ve been playing a number short because we hadn’t run the quarterback any at all.”
While we don’t know the extent of the injury, Gundy told Robert Allen after the game Rangel’s out for a long time. It’s a crushing blow simply from the standpoint of depth, but then we saw how the offense moved with Rangel’s mobility, so it’s a crushing loss from a productivity standpoint. In the first half, Rangel only threw nine passes, completing six for 51 yards, but he threw for a touchdown to Ollie Gordon II and helped set up two rushing touchdowns by Gordon.
“Rangel’s going to be out a while,” Gundy told Robert Allen after the game. “Bad situation and I hate it for the kid. He misfired on one ball and threw a pick, but he came in and did exactly what we asked him to do, which was execute the plan we had for this game. I just hate it that he got injured like that. Bowman’s gonna have to compete his ass off and he’s gonna have to run the ball.”
Now, I’ll definitely eat some crow here, and I’m glad to do it. Bowman really struggled to get going once he was put into the game, missing his first five passes. He did, however, have two rushes for 17 yards and a first down to start the third quarter, and he really turned it up late in the third quarter and balled out.
Then with the Pokes’ last offensive drive of the game late in the fourth, Bowman led the Pokes on a more than eight minute, 17 play drive going 76 yards and capping it off with a six-yard touchdown pass to Brennan Presley.
Bowman finished the game going 11-of-19 for 85 yards with one touchdown and one interception. He’s back to being the starting quarterback with Rangel out and will need to continue that play if the Pokes want to end their losing skid in Big 12 play. Obviously, that’s all predicated on whether or not the defense can make tackles and stop the run game, but that’s for another story.