Instant Recap: Oklahoma State Falls to Houston 35-32 on the Road

BOXSCORE

Support PFB with a PFB+ membership — $8 a month or $50 for a year.

The Cowboys have been a second-half team for most of the season, but after falling behind early in Houston, their bugaboos finally came back to bite them.

No. 18 Oklahoma State fell to No. 20 Houston 35-32 on the road. The Cowboys made a push late, but they couldn’t quite dig out of this one.

The Cowboys were ineffective in the red zone in the first half, were statistically outperformed on third and fourth downs and lost the turnover battle 2-1. We knew these would all be important things to watch coming in.

The Cowboys, again, were resilient in the second half. But it’s hard to overcome those issues against a team like Houston on the road.

Drew Mestemaker has been the talk of college football and draft heads all week, but it was Conner Weigman who looked like a pro from start to finish.

The Cowboys’ sophomore QB finished 22-for-34 for 365 yards, three touchdowns and an interception. After a rough start, he rebounded in the second half, but it was the sixth-year senior finished 24-for-33 for 343 yards, a career-high five passing touchdowns and a pick.

OSU fell behind as much 14-3 in the first half, but if a couple plays went their way, it could have been 14-all at halftime. On their first two drives, the Pokes made it to within the two yards and five yards of the goal line. They came out of those with three total points.

The Cowboys have had red zone issues all year, but the Cougars kept the Cowboys’ offense off-schedule and one-dimensional for most of the first half. Mestemaker was just 6-of-15 for 124 yards and an interception in the opening two quarters.

Oklahoma State came out of the locker room intent on pushing it on the ground, and it paid off in the end zone. With his first carry of the game, Ayo Adeyi capped OSU’s first drive of the second half with a 13-yard touchdown run. On that opening drive of the third quarter, OSU rushed for 56 yards at 11.2 yards per carry and that set the tone.

After rushing for just 14 yards in the first half (one in the second quarter), the Cowboys ran it for 120 yards at 7.1 per carry in the second half. And after struggling in the red zone in the first half, the Pokes scored red zone touchdowns on their first two drives of the third quarter.

But despite the ability to get into the end zone in the second half, the Cowboys couldn’t keep Weigman out of it all night. After his opening-drive interception, five of Houston’s next seven drives ended with a touchdown.

Again, the Cowboys were resilient in the second half and Mestemaker was able to erase some early snafus from his memory and come with big plays. There were just simply too many mistakes and too many big plays given up.

The Cowboys fell behind 28-17 after trading touchdowns with the Cougars. Then Mestemaker was strip-sacked late in the fourth quarter. It was his second turnover of the game and gave the home team all the momentum. But then the Cowboys’ defense earned its first three-and-out of the game and their QB rewarded them.

On the first play of the next drive, he found Caleb Hawkins on the dump-off and he hit the sideline and ran it 66 yards for a touchdown. Mestemaker found Justin Bowick for the two-point play to pull within 28-25 with 11:57 to go.

But Houston answered again with another big play. This time Weigman found Koby Young for a 48-yard touchdown pass to go back up 35-25 with under 10 minutes to go. To add insult to issue, the Cowboys were called for roughing the snapper on the PAT, which added 15 yards to the kickoff. Then a botched kickoff, pinned the Pokes at their 2-yard line. A couple plays later, Caleb Hawkins’ 24-yard catch was erased due to a holding call on Shaun Torgeson.

The Cowboys kept swinging. Mestemaker dug them out of that tough spot when he broke loose for a 29-yard scramble. Then a couple of plays later, he found Bowick in the end zone again to pull back within 35-32 with 4:54 left. Unfortunately, the Cougars are adept at controlling clock and they squeezed every second of clock and all three timeouts from Eric Morris’ pocket before Mestemaker could get a chance for another heroic finish.

Caleb Hawkins’ game will probably go a bit unnoticed due to the result. But he led the Cowboys in receiving and rushing, reeling in seven of eight targets for a career-high 125 yards and a score to go with 68 rushing yards.

Wyatt Young added five catches for 99 yards and a score. But he and Mestemaker were uncharacteristically out-of-sync, especially early. It took nine throws to get those five grabs.

Ethan Wesloski led the Pokes with nine total tackles (four solo), a tackle for loss, a QB hurry and his share of a sack with partner Jaleel Johnson. Evan Jackon and Tate Romney each added eight total tackle a piece. Malik Charles had the Cowboys’ other QB takedown to go with four tackles.

With the loss, the Cowboys fall to 4-2 on the season and 2-1 in Big 12 play. Next up, Oklahoma State returns home to host Colorado next Saturday in Boone Pickens Stadium.