Mason Rudolph Shines Once Again In a Close Game Late

Mason Rudolph tossed so many dimes on Saturday I thought the Federal Reserve was going to issue a cease and desist. He finished the Kansas State game 29/38 for 457 and five TDs. Based on stats along, you could chalk it up as a top-five game ever for him. Even more so considering he came into the game having thrown just 10 TDs on the road in his career.

Rudolph now has eight wins (!) over teams in which OSU trailed in the second half in his career and is 19-5 as a starter.

“Say what you want about the guy … he’s won a lot of football games,” Mike Gundy told reporters after the game. “He actually played better after he turned the ball over a couple of times than he did before. Why that is, I don’t know. He came together. He played well. He played terrific in the last half of the fourth quarter.”

It’s the second straight year in which No. 2 has led a game-winning drive against Kansas State with less than two minutes left in the game. He was 8/9 for 177 yards and two TDs on Oklahoma State’s final four drives. His only incompletion was an interception on a 50/50 ball. No passes he threw hit the ground. It was a spectacular showing.

“I just love tight games,” Rudolph told the O’Colly. “I love that crowd noise and being on the road in a tough environment and just seeing your teammates grow. Those game-winning drives and those last few minutes is where you gotta just relish it, and you gotta love it.”

He did. Every bit of it on Saturday. And it impressed his offensive coordinator.

“To have your eyes down the field and be able to keep your eyes downfield when somebody’s barreling down on you and then be able to navigate your way just to a clear launch point is a hell of a trait that quarterbacks,” Yurcich told the O’Colly. “Some have ‘em and then some don’t, and I think that’s what makes really good quarterbacks great.”

Freeze that throw to Washington for six. Watch Rudolph step up in the pocket and toss a missile to The Prez. Look at how he avoided the sack right here and kept his eyes on No. 28 (who thought his QB got sacked).

Here are three of the other eight passes he completed on OSU’s final four drives.

Rudolph is a great one. His numbers show it. The eye test shows it. He’s one win from 20 in his career and still has a season and a quarter to go. He’s three wins from a Big 12 title. His stats this year are enormous through nine games. He has nearly matched last year’s totals through 75 percent of this season.

He is on pace to fly by the 4,000-yard mark (only Brandon Weeden is in that club) and toss over 30 TDs with under 10 picks. He is inching towards that elusive 70 percent mark that Weeden hit in 2011. He has become everything we thought he could be which is why his warts (overthrows, not sliding etc.) are stark.

But like we have seen time and time again and saw on Saturday, when poo is flying around and nobody knows what to do, Rudolph is willing to take the wheel and steer the S.S. Gundy safely into the harbor.

Those last few minutes is where you gotta just relish it. You gotta love it.

He does.

We do too.