Good, Bad and Ugly from Oklahoma State’s Loss to Tulsa

The Cowboys are yet to beat an FBS opponent in the last calendar year and counting, and there were a lot of other unfortunate historical tidbits that we may or may not have the stomach to dig into down the line.

But to stick to this game, and to help put a bow on it in whatever cathartic way possible, let’s get to the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from OSU-Tulsa. It wasn’t hard to fill in the latter two slots.

The Good: Zane Flores Showed Some Grit, and Some Wheels

Believe it or not, there were at least a couple of good things I could have pointed to (if I could lobotomize the final result from my brain).

The obvious choice may be that OSU might have an RB in Rodney Fields Jr. But since Marshall did a nice job of outlining how the first-year Cowboy was a bright spot in a dark night I’ll turn my sights to the QB.

Zane Flores ended with a decent stat line, completing 63% of his passes and actually showed off his wheels, taking off 10 times for 56 yards and a score. He’s not Spencer Sanders with the ball in his hands, and he’s not Hauss Hejny. But he did show that he’s not inept at tucking the ball and picking up a first down when that’s what a defense gives him. From my untrained eye and with a short sample size, he’s probably plus/minus a Taylor Cornelius in the sneak dual-threat category.

But what if he continues to improve, and if the offensive line can be decent, and the coaching staff lets him off the leash? That’s a lot of IFs but, if satisfied, I think that’s a quarterback the Pokes could win with. And that’s all you can ask for at this point.

The Bad: Tackling

The Cowboys somehow seemed to tackle worse in a touchdown loss against a previously hapless Tulsa offense than they did in a 66-point smackdown to Oregon.

Every time I looked up, I saw a big chunk play after skidding off an OSU defender, especially in the first half. Tulsa had seven plays of 15 yards or more before halftime.

But it wasn’t just me. Pro Football Focus hung the Cowboys with a 56.4 rating for tackling on Friday night, by far their worst of the season. For reference, OSU turned in ratings of 72.4 and 73.4, respectively, against UT-Martin and Oregon.

The Ugly: Life in Stillwater

I won’t belabor the point, but things are as bad as they’ve been since Mike Gundy took over 21 years ago.

Gundy had to answer some hard questions about the heat of his seat after the game on Friday, and he will continue to have to so long as his Cowboys come up head-scratchingly short. We could mention the year-plus victory drought against FBS opponents or the fact that Flores’ long TD was their first against an FBS defense in nearly 10 months.

But all of that to say, college football is passing through a crossroads, and OSU might get left behind. The NIL era is in full swing with a close cousin epitomizing OSU’s opposite.

Texas Tech just dropped a reported $28 million in NIL this offseason, second only to Texas, and the Red Raiders are bearing the fruit of their spending early, now 4-0 fresh off a win over No. 16 Utah. Two years ago, you would be hard-pressed to find any non-tortilla tosser who would have put Tech over the OSU in terms of football prowess. Now the Raiders have their own super donor, and it feels like the Cowboys might be left behind.

I would normally try to toss in a little extra nuance. It’s early. Things could turn around. (They could, by the way). But things feel different in Stillwater. The Culture that OSU brass has touted for the last decade plus seems somewhere between tarnished and truant. If things are going to turn around, it needs to happen fast.