We Simulated Oklahoma State’s Season 100 Times, Here’s What Happened

The college football video game returned this year, and for the first time ever, it featured real players.

So, it seemed logical that we here at PFB simulated Oklahoma State’s highly anticipated 2024 football season an ungodly amount of times. This took a while. This should be obvious to say, but in case it isn’t, this means absolutely nothing and was merely a fun little exercise as we waited for kickoff. With that said, here is what happened when we simulated the season 100 times.

The Games

Simulating 100 times makes it easy to get a percentage on what chances the video game gives the Cowboys in their real-life games this season. Here is the percentage of times OSU won each of its games:

FCS Northwest (SDSU isn’t in the game): 100%
Arkansas: 65%
at Tulsa: 87%
Utah: 42%
at Kansas State: 42%
West Virginia: 62%
at BYU: 65%
at Baylor: 71%
Arizona State: 81%
at TCU: 80%
Texas Tech: 59%
at Colorado: 58%

Takeaways:

• South Dakota State doesn’t exist in this game. Poor FCS Northwest didn’t stand a chance. I imagine the Jackrabbits will put up more of a fight.

• Arkansas proved the trickiest of OSU’s nonconference games, which might prove to be the case after the Razorbacks pummeled Arkansas-Pine Bluff 70-0 (in real life) on Thursday night.

• No surprises that the toughest games on OSU’s schedule were the back-to-back helpings of Utah and Kansas State. In only 16 simulations did OSU beat both the Utes and the Wildcats.

• Those last two games of the regular season proved tougher than I expected, as they were the only conference games outside of Utah and Kansas State where the Cowboys won less than 60% of the time.

Big 12 Titles

I took note of every Big 12 champion. Here is a look at how many times each team lifted the trophy in Arlington:

Utah — 32
Oklahoma State — 11
Kansas State –11
UCF — 10
Texas Tech — 8
Colorado — 7
Cincinnati — 6
Kansas — 6
Arizona — 5
West Virginia — 3
BYU — 1
Arizona State — 0
Baylor — 0
Houston — 0
Iowa State — 0
TCU — 0

Takeaways:

• Utah was relatively dominant, nearly tripling any other teams’ conference trophies.

• In the midst of the simulating, it felt like Kansas State was going to finish with more titles than OSU, so I was somewhat surprised when I totaled everything up at the end to see the two even.

• I’m not sure what’s the most shocking among the group of UCF, Texas Tech, Colorado and Cincinnati combing to win the Big 12 on 31% of simulations. I think I’m most shocked by Cincinnati’s six wins, given the Bearcats were picked 14th in the preseason poll. But UCF hitting double digits was also intriguing.

• Iowa State was the highest team in the preseason poll (sixth) to finish the exercise without a Big 12 title.

Playoff

With the Cowboys winning a Big 12 title 11% of the time, it should come as no surprise that the Pokes also made an impact on the College Football Playoff in the simulations. Here is a look at some percentages dealing with OSU on the playoff:

Won the national championship: 2%
Made the national title game: 4%
Made the College Football Playoff: 28%

Takeaways:

• OSU’s most dominant season (Simulation 66) saw the Cowboys finish 15-1 — winning the Big 12 title and the national title.

• OSU also made the national title game in Simulations 9, 32 and 44. The Pokes won a national title in Simulation 32, where OSU went 13-3. The Cowboys fell in the final in Simulation 9 and Simulation 44.

• I have to imagine OSU fans would feel alright about having a 2% chance at a national title this season and perhaps better at a 28% chance at making the first 12-team playoff.

• Winning the Big 12 wasn’t a necessity when it came to playoff berths. On 17 occasions, OSU made the CFP without winning the Big 12. In fact, making the Big 12 title game wasn’t always a requirement. There were 13 instances where OSU didn’t make it to Arlington but did make the CFP. Likewise, there were two times where OSU lost in the Big 12 title game and didn’t make the CFP.

• OSU finished in the Top 5 of the final media poll 11 times: twice as No. 1, twice as No. 2, four times as No. 4 and three times as No. 5. The other side of that, OSU finished unranked on 46% of simulations. The other 43% of simulations saw OSU finish between No. 6 and No. 25.

Record

I didn’t track records for all Big 12 teams because that would’ve taken forever (an even longer forever than it already took), but here are some superlatives on OSU’s records throughout this exercise:

Average regular season record: 8.12-3.88
Average total record: 9.03-4.38
Best Timeline: 15-1 (Simulation 66)
Darkest Timeline: 3-9 (Simulation 77)

Takeaways:

• OSU finished with double-digit wins in 39% of the simulations. Of those, the Cowboys finished with 15 wins once, 14 wins once, 13 wins twice, 12 wins four times, 11 wins 14 times and 10 wins 17 times.

• During the Cowboys’ 15-1 season, their only loss was in Manhattan to Kansas State.

• OSU’s other national championship-winning season (Simulation 32) saw the Cowboys drop the Utah game and two headscratchers to Baylor and Arizona State in back-to-back weeks. Still, the Pokes made and won the Big 12 title in that simulation and went on to win the natty.

• The darkest timeline of Simulation 77 saw OSU start the year 1-6 with its only win coming against FCS Northwest. From there, OSU’s only wins came against Arizona State and Colorado.

• Aside from that dismal simulation, OSU finished below the six wins needed for bowl eligibility on four other occasions — all 5-7 seasons.

Individual Accolades

I also tracked the individual honors that Cowboys picked up over the simulating. The video game doesn’t have a ton of licenses for the various awards, but to avoid confusion, I’ll use the award’s name in real life:

Ollie Gordon wins Doak Walker: 14%
De’Zhaun Stribling wins Biletnikoff: 4%
Collin Oliver wins Bednarik: 1%
Collin Oliver wins Butkus: 6%
Brennan Presley wins Jet Award (Return Specialist of the Year): 1%
Mike Gundy (moonlighting as Francis Eaton) wins Coach of the Year: 1%
Ollie Gordon All-American: 58%
Nick Martin All-American: 23%
De’Zhaun Stribling All-American: 12%
Rashod Owens All-American: 2%
Collin Oliver All-American: 1%

• I’ve seen simulations where Gordon took home a Heisman trophy, but that didn’t happen in any 100 that I did. Although I didn’t mark down every Heisman trophy winner, the only running back I remember seeing win the award was Michigan’s Donovan Edwards, and I recall seeing that only once.

• Speaking of Heisman winners, though, Jalen Milroe had to have won the most of any player. Other regulars were Will Howard (Ohio State via Kansas State) and Dillon Gabriel (Oregon via Oklahoma).

• I also tried to take note anytime a Big 12 player won the Heisman. UCF quarterback KJ Jefferson took home the hardware in multiple sims. Shedeur Sanders (Colorado), Garrett Greene (West Virginia), Behren Morton (Texas Tech), Cam Rising (Utah), Tetairoa McMillan (Arizona) and Jaden Bray (West Virginia by way of Oklahoma State!) all won at least one.

• On 14% of simulations Gordon won his second consecutive Doak Walker Award. I can’t tell whether I think that is low or just about right. For reference, only Ricky Williams (1997 and 1998), Darren McFadden (2006 and 2007) and Jonathan Taylor (2018 and 2019) have won the award in back-to-back seasons.

• Welcome back, De’Zhaun Stribling. In 4% of simulations Stribling won the Biletnikoff, which would be the fourth time an OSU player has won the award. He was also a regular on the All-America teams.

• We should’ve known Collin Oliver was a glitch in the system when he recorded 11.5 sacks as a true freshman, but this exercise took that to a different level. Oliver won the Chuck Bednarik (defensive player of the year award) once and the Butkus (best linebacker award) six times. But in none of those seasons did Oliver earn All-America status. I thought, “Hmm, must be something in the code that just doesn’t allow him to be an All-American.” But then in Simulation 71, Oliver was an All-American. My best guess is all this happened because Oliver’s sack totals were impressive, leaving the game to perhaps not think of him as a linebacker thus getting all out of whack.