If Travis Ford Gets Fired, This Stat Will Be the Reason Why

I put “if” in the headline to be diplomatic. It’s happening. Everybody knows it. And Mark Cooper pointed out why after OSU’s loss to Texas Tech on Saturday. Cooper wrote in his gamer that the loss was OSU’s sixth in GIA this season. That hasn’t happened since …

1977-78

Here’s how Cooper put it.

The last time Oklahoma State lost six times in Gallagher-Iba Arena in one season, every current Cowboy player was more than a decade away from being born. Cowboys coach Travis Ford was 8 years old.

Whoo, that’s not good. For all the things that have gone awry in the Ford era, that one is probably the worst. It doesn’t much matter how you got there or why it happened. It doesn’t matter that there were injuries or bad beats early in the season. It just matters that you’ve lost six home games with two ranked teams (WVU and Texas) still on the slate.

Here are the games OSU has lost at home this year:

Tulsa (66-56)
Missouri State (64-63)
OU (74-72)
Baylor (69-65)
Iowa State (64-59)
Texas Tech (71-61)

OSU has always been able to defend GIA. Even in lean years. Especially in the Ford era. He’s build a large house in Stillwater on the back of that fact. And it can’t now and that’s a big issue.

Ford’s previous worst year was a four-loss season in GIA in 2012. He’s staring eight right between the eyes this time around.[1. Eddie’s worst effort in GIA was a five-loss season … it was his last.] He knows he’s dealing with a wounded animal right now too.

“They’re down right now,” Ford said of his team. “I told them that they have two choices. They can either hang their heads and walk around as if you lost your puppy dog and feel sorry for yourself or you can throw your shoulders back, grit your teeth and come out with some fight.

“Those are the two options you have. Which door are you going to walk through? When adversity sets in, you have choices to make. You can either come out ready to defend, fight, crawl, scratch and do whatever you’ve got to do or you can sit around and feel sorry for yourself.”

They’re going to have to do more than that to avoid the first seven-loss season at home since 1972-73.