Oklahoma State Finishes Big 12 Play Winless Following 52-0 Blowout Loss to Colorado

STILLWATER – Oklahoma State goes winless in conference play for the first time since 1994 as the Pokes get blown out by Colorado, 52-0.

With the loss, the Cowboys finish the 2024 season 3-9 overall and 0-9 in Big 12 play.

“I told the team it’s been a rough couple of months for everybody,” head coach Mike Gundy told Robert Allen on the postgame. “One thing that’s important that we do is we’ve got to be honest with everybody that’s involved, and the players have gone through an extremely difficult two months. Last week we played well enough to win and today we couldn’t make a play, and it’s tough. But they continued to compete, I watched them, even though they got beat on a play or two, there were two or three deep balls that were contested. Travis Hunter went up and caught a couple of them, No. 10 caught one. Now, I’m not trying to say any of that is acceptable or good enough, but it’s important to me to evaluate them and make comments based on effort they were giving us. We did the one thing that you absolutely couldn’t do, is go on the road and turn the ball over twice inside the 20 yard line and give them two touchdowns.”

The Cowboys finished the game with a miserable 147 total yards, 77 through the air and 70 on the ground. Just a few minutes into the fourth quarter, the Cowboys had more penalty yards, 79 on nine flags, than total yards as they had just 65 yards following a sack of Alan Bowman. That included negative five rushing yards.

The Cowboys recorded just 10 first downs on the day, going 3-of-15 on 3rd down and recorded nine penalties for 79 yards. They also had four turnovers, two interceptions and two lost fumbles.

The fourth quarter was better from a rushing standpoint as they finally got into the positive yardage rushing the ball. 

"To be honest with you, it was so bad, it would be hard to point something out,” Gundy said after the game. “You're being kind to us. We never could generate any momentum, one, as you've watched us a long time. Our offense, most offenses, are built about some momentum getting going. We never could generate anything. We had a number of passes that were competitive, and we didn't come up with them. And we had a missed throw or two, and I don't really feel like we run blocked very well. But the big picture is I just don't think we had a good plan. I don't think our plan was very good, and for that reason, we never could get the ball rolling and it just became a very difficult day."

True freshman quarterback, Maealiuaki Smith, got his second-straight start, but this one did not go well at all as he finished going 11-of-29 for just 70 yards and two interceptions, having been replaced by Bowman one play into the fourth quarter after he threw a pick six from the OSU end zone to former Cowboy DJ McKinney.

Bowman played the fourth quarter, finishing the game going 1-of-5 passing for seven yards and two carries for negative 10 yards.

Trent Howland led the way rushing the ball with nine carries for 57 yards coming in the fourth quarter.

On the other side, the defense allowed 471 total yards, 438 coming through the air, with Colorado recorded 26 first downs. The Cowboys did, however, recorded six sacks. 

One of the few bright spots on the day came