What They’re Saying: National Talking Heads Wonder What’s Possible for Cowboys After Oregon Upset

Oklahoma State’s loss to Tulsa last week made the national news, but the Cowboys’ upset win against Oregon made the front page.

College football talking heads from far and wide reacted to Oklahoma State’s 39-31 win against Oregon throughout Saturday night. Most of the focus was given to how this affects Oregon’s path to the College Football Playoff, which given recent history, is probably fair. But not all the focus was on the Ducks.

Here’s what the national perspective is on the Cowboys’ performance.

Josh Pate

Josh Pate called this game this first “big stunner” of the college football season.

Pate almost started by getting into Oregon, but then he remembered his own rule.

“First off, congratulations to Oklahoma State,” Pate said. “We talk about winners first. That’s the rule around here. Outrushed them 237-90. I know this final score is (39-31) — anyone who watched this game, as more and more of you probably did as the game went on, this was not a close game.”

Pate compared it to SMU’s win against Florida State in that it was close on the scoreboard, but it was evident SMU was the much better team. It’s just that better team was Oklahoma State in this instance.

Pate also made note of the quarterback matchup pinning Drew Mestemaker against Dante Moore. Both guys have been in the first-round conversation, but Moore moreso than Mestemaker.

“One team had a huge quarterback edge in this game,” Pate said. “It just wasn’t the favorite. Drew Mestemaker, for that clunky start they got off to last week, this is kind of what people expected it to look like — maybe not to this degree against Oregon, though.”

When getting into what this loss meant for Oregon, Pate called it the worse loss of Dan Lanning’s tenure before providing a take that would prove popular as we continue on.

“And maybe,” Pate said, “just maybe, Oklahoma State does Oregon a huge favor and becomes a real big factor and contender in the Big 12 race, where you look back on this loss three months from now, and you say, ‘Man, you remember that day? We were so shocked Oregon was a three-plus touchdown favorite, they lost outright. Maybe we shouldn’t have been that shocked, we just didn’t know about Oklahoma State.'”

Cover 3

The guys over at Cover 3 mostly attacked this game from the Oregon angle, but Chip Patterson cracked the seal on the OSU slant.

“A hardy congratulations to Eric Morris,” Chip Patterson said. “This was your home opener as Oklahoma State’s coach. I mean, you had a lot of Oklahoma State fans at the Tulsa game, that you lost — not great. But to be able to win your home-opener, against a Top 10 opponent, to have them rush the field, to have them take down the goalpost, to have them really take this in as a true ‘put the past behind us, and let’s move forward.'”

And then Bud Elliott also pointed out that there probably isn’t a team better than Oregon left on the Cowboys’ schedule.

“If they play like that — and again, that’s probably their A game, I would assume,” Bud Elliott said. “They outgained Oregon by 250. Like, there’s not a Big 12 game they can’t win. … If Mestemaker is gonna throw the ball like that, that thing is wide open again.”

Andy and Ari

Like Pate, Andy Staples treated the Cowboys’ upset win as breaking news.

He, too, made note of the fact that Oklahoma State looked the much better team.

“This was an utter demolition in terms of Oklahoma State moving the ball on Oregon’s defense,” Staples said. “Oregon’s defense had a couple really nice havoc plays. They had a pick-six early. They had another interception that put them on the 1 and set up another touchdown that really kept them in the game. But for the most part, Oklahoma State was moving the ball back and forth, up and down the field pretty much at will, which is amazing because they couldn’t do it last week against Tulsa. I do not understand how these things happen, but that is college football.”

And here that storyline is again — if OSU can beat Oregon, who can’t the Cowboys beat?

“But Oklahoma State, guess what? If you can beat Oregon, you can beat everybody else on your schedule,” Staples said. “Texas Tech is the toughest team remaining on this schedule, obviously. Texas Tech is the favorite in the Big 12. If you can beat Oregon, you can beat Texas Tech. … That should excite you.”

Brandon Walker

Most of this was expletive-laden, and it’s hard to transcribe a sentence that doesn’t have at least three cuss words.

But Brandon Walker and Liam Blutman were stunned, to say the least, wondering how it’s possible for a team to lose to Tulsa one week and turnaround and beat Oregon.

“But Mestemaker is that future NFL QB1, and he showed that today,” Blutman said. “He is one of the most talented throwers of the football in this country.”