Alan Bowman Still ‘The Guy’ for Oklahoma State After Benching

STILLWATER — From his own orange end zone at Boone Pickens Stadium, Oklahoma State quarterback Alan Bowman stood with his hands on top of his helmet, seemingly in disbelief with how his day was going. He had just thrown his second interception of the game while trying to connect with De’Zhaun Stribling deep and desperately get his team back into the game.

OSU lost its Big 12 opener to Utah 22-19 on Saturday. The Cowboys’ offense was abysmal until the very end, and its leader at quarterback shouldered much of that struggle. Bowman was benched for Garret Rangel at the start of the second half before re-entering the game in the fourth quarter.

“Offensively, we were awful,” OSU coach Mike Gundy said after the loss. “We couldn’t get any quarterback play. Then all the sudden late in the game we start playing better at quarterback, but it is what it is by then. In my opinion, they won the game, but we certainly did a lot of things to help them. We try to avoid that here, but we didn’t today.” 

Bowman, a seventh-year veteran, completed only 36% of his passes in the first half. He had 89 passing yards and an interception at halftime, as the offense had 117 yards total down 10-3. This came only a week after he torched Tulsa for 396 yards and five TDs.

But the switch at quarterback didn’t change anything for OSU. Rangel, a redshirt sophomore, was 3-of-11 for 31 yards, averaging 2.8 yards a completion. Gundy then went back to Bowman early in the fourth quarter.

“We don’t do it a lot here, but sometimes you gotta get a guy out and calm him down a little bit,” Gundy said. “But I don’t have that answer (on what was wrong with Bowman). Things move so fast during the game that it’s hard to get that part of it. But I just felt like that we weren’t getting good play and we needed a relief pitcher, get somebody else in there. And Garret had a tough day, so we switched back. But as I said, we haven’t done that a lot here, but sometimes you just gotta get a guy out and clear your mind a little bit.” 

Bowman came back in with OSU down 16-3 with 9:26 left in the fourth quarter and still just trying to reach the end zone once. On Bowman’s first drive back out there, he threw two incomplete passes as OSU went three-and-out. On the first play of his next drive, he threw his second pick from deep in his team’s own territory.

But Bowman didn’t even make it back to the sideline before left tackle Dalton Cooper met him and pushed his quarterback’s chin up to symbolize he needed to keep his head up. Bowman’s entire offensive line had made their way to him by the time he was on the sideline.

“I mean, it’s a game of football, you play at a high level,” center Joe Michalski said. “They’re good players, too. Everyone’s gonna make mistakes. Just one of those things that happens. You know, it’s short-term memory, move on to the next time. I mean, we have a bunch more opportunities.”

Although too little, too late after Utah converted the interception into six points, Bowman led the Cowboys to touchdowns on their next two drives. He hit Brennan Presley for a 28-yard score then a two-point conversion. He then connected with Rashod Owens for a nine-yard TD before finding Presley again for another two-point conversion.

After the lackluster first half, Bowman finished with 206 passing yards and a pair of TDs while completing 48% of his passes. However, he did complete 73% of his throws in the fourth quarter after he re-entered.

“I’m happy that the whole offense started executing better and started moving the ball better as a unit,” Michalski said. “Whoever is back there (at quarterback) doesn’t matter to me. I’m just glad to see us succeed, and we just need to make sure we do that throughout the entire game and not late.”

Even after the benching and overall disappointing performance, Gundy confirmed Bowman is still OSU’s QB1 going forward, especially with a road trip to No. 13 Kansas State coming up next week.

“Offense was sputtering, so it was something that Gundy did to see if something could change,” Presley said. “We know Bowman’s the guy going forward. It was no big deal to us. It was just something to try to get the juices flowing. You do whatever it takes to win the game that you’re in at that point and you worry about everything else later.”