Oklahoma State Not Bothered by Early Bye, Cowboys Attempt Turn Around After Oregon

Last season, Oklahoma State was one of the last teams in the Big 12 to enjoy a week off. 

That couldn’t be further from the truth this fall as Mike Gundy’s squad finds itself on an off week during the third week of the season alongside three other conference teams. 

At least OSU didn’t have a Week 2 bye like TCU, but the Cowboys’ head coach wasn’t phased by the early break.

“Some people say this one’s too early, but we practiced for four weeks in the summer,” Gundy said. “So it’s, the timing of it’s fine, you know, after game two, Game 3, somewhere in there.”

When asked about it, the players also seemed happy with the timing of the bye week, considering they have been working hard to get ready for the season since at least July.

“I feel like the bye week’s good,” safety Parker Robertson said. “It’s a good placement because we just had fall camp and two games. It just gets our body recovered and moving forward so we have another good stretch going on.”

When Oklahoma State (1-1) returns to the field, the Cowboys will play games for seven consecutive weeks, which appears to tie the longest streak in the Big 12 this season.

Several players said the nature of Saturday’s loss would motivate them during the nearly two-week preparation for Tulsa on Sept. 19.

“It is going to be a little salty for an extra week because we don’t have an opponent this week,” receiver Christian Fitzpatrick said. “I would say our focus is going to be on the next week and we are going to try to make a statement as best we can, for sure.”

While Oklahoma State’s recent results on the field have been largely disappointing, the Cowboys manage to show real life following bye weeks.

Oklahoma State is 3-2 after a bye since 2021, but the Cowboys are 4-1 against the spread in that time. Odds aren’t everything, but they do provide a snapshot of the perceived gap between those teams at the time.

Last season Texas Tech was expected to arrive in Stillwater and win by 3 or 4 points. The Red Raiders won by eight. But considering Oklahoma State’s offense tied things up in the middle of the fourth quarter and scored 29 more points than they averaged in the team’s other Big 12 contests last season, it felt like real progress.

Oklahoma State beat the spread every other time.

The bye week bump doesn’t usually seem to carry over into future weeks, but there’s a case to be made for 2023.

Oklahoma State was 2-2 overall with a 26-point loss to South Alabama on the resume. That team not only stunned Kansas State, it rolled off five consecutive wins and finished 10-4 overall.

It’s hard to know what this transfer-filled team is capable of yet given its only opponents include an FCS foe and an Oregon team which seems bound for a meaningful playoff run. 

The upcoming slate against work-in-progress Tulsa (1-1), possibly-soon-to-be-ranked Baylor and at total-unknown Arizona should reveal if this group of Cowboys is capable of a similar bounce-back.

“I’ve been around them since July 28 and I’ve seen how they’ve worked,” Gundy said. “I think that they’ll come out and they’ll practice hard and, and I think they’ll be excited to get back on the field in two weeks to be honest with you.”