How Saturday’s Game Stands Out in the Heaps of Highly Anticipated Games Played in Stillwater over the Years

Mike Gundy has seen a lot of big games from the south sideline of Boone Pickens Stadium in his 20 years as the Cowboys’ head coach, but remarkably, Saturday’s game manages to stand out.

Gundy is 10-9 in Big 12 openers, which given his impressive career winning percentage of 0.681, that’s not all that great. In fact, Oklahoma State has won just three of its past eight Big 12 openers — a stretch that has seen the Cowboys finish with double-digit wins four times. Three of those double-digit win seasons started with a Big 12 loss.

But at the same time, Gundy has been nails at home against ranked teams. In OSU’s past 19 games (same number of conference openers) at home against ranked foes, Gundy’s Cowboys are 13-6 — a 0.684 winning percentage more on track with Gundy’s career record.

So if you believe in history repeating itself, you might be in a bit of a conundrum when the No. 12 Utes come to Stillwater at 3 p.m. Saturday. There almost hasn’t been a strong comparison to Saturday’s game in Gundy’s illustrious tenure, a game where the Cowboys opened Big 12 play at home in a ranked vs. ranked matchup. But there is one example — 2017.

It was Mason Rudolph’s senior year. The Cowboys were 3-0 and ranked sixth in the AP Poll. The Pokes welcomed No. 16 TCU to town, and the Horned Frogs left the victors. That game saw Rudolph threw for 398 yards and two touchdowns, and Justice Hill run for 102 yards and a score. James Washington and Marcell Ateman each eclipsed triple-digit receiving yards. … But, the Cowboys threw three interceptions that day.

Note, I didn’t say Rudolph threw three. He threw two. The Cowboys had the ball with 7:25 to play trailing 37-24 before Rudolph completed a 29-yard pass to Ateman in a play that finished at the TCU 23-yard line. But then the Cowboys perhaps got a little too cute. Rudolph threw a ball behind the line of scrimmage to Jalen McCleskey, who then tried to hit Dillon Stoner on a double-pass. McCleskey’s ball, though, was intercepted, essentially putting an end to the Cowboys’ comeback hopes. The game finished 44-31, TCU.

The 2021 Big 12 opener was also a fairly exciting day in Stillwater. That game saw No. 25 Kansas State come to town against an OSU team that wasn’t ranked but was receiving votes in the AP Poll. OSU won 31-20 off a spectacular day from Spencer Sanders, who threw for 344 yards and accounted for three touchdowns. Jaylen Warren ran for 123 yards. Tay Martin had 100 receiving yards. Malcolm Rodriguez had seven tackles, a tackle for loss and recovered a fumble for a touchdown. OSU finished that season by beating Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.

There have also been big road games to start Big 12 play — like OSU’s trip to Waco in 2022, to Austin in 2019 and to Waco in 2016. But given Gundy’s longstanding tenure in Stillwater, Saturday’s game against Utah stands out in a slew of highly anticipated games because it isn’t all too often when a game is played in Stillwater this early in the season that looks like it will have such an impact on the Big 12 title.