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Mason Rudolph’s First Wins against Each Big 12 School

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The fourth try was truly a charm. After three meetings that resulted in three losses and his team being outscored by an average of two TDs per game, Mason Rudolph finally tackled the Bears. It was Baylor’s worst loss in 10 years.

But it took Rudolph a lot less time to place the other nine notches on his Big 12 belt. Let’s take a look at those other first wins against rival schools.

Bedlam 2014 (38-35)

This one came pretty quickly. After just his second start, the name “Mason” made it to the top of a lot of baby-name lists for orange-blooded parents to be. A chilly night in Norman ended with an historic re-punt but was made possible off the arm of a true freshman. The bowl streak was kept alive, the program was headed back in the right direction and the rest, as they say, is history.

At Texas 2015 (30-37)

The last time the Cowboys played in Austin, Rudolph was still QB1a. After one of the sloppier games of his career and one with some of the more head-scratching substitutions by OSU’s coaching staff, OSU got the win off of back-to-back clutch field goals by Ben Grogan — and thanks to a Not Top-10 punting fiasco by the ‘Horns.

Kansas State 2015 (36-34)

In back-to-back games Grogan nailed the game-winner. But not before Rudolph threw for 437 yards and three scores against a then-unbeaten Wildcat team. It was just the second 400-plus yard game of Rudolph’s career. He’s had five since then.

At West Virginia 2015 (33-26)

This was one of — if not the worst — game of Rudolph’s career. West Virginia’s defense keyed in on every deep ball which led to a 0-to-3 touchdown to interception count for Rudolph. The lack of a running game hamstrung the Cowboys’ offense and J.W. Walsh was brought in to provide some semblance of a ground threat. Walsh captained a game-winning drive in overtime and Rudolph began an historic stretch of QB efficiency following this trip to Morgantown.

Kansas (Homecoming) 2015 (58-10)

This game was one of the stranger scenes I can remember. I was not in attendance but you could feel the uneasiness through the telecast and on social media beforehand. The tragedy that took place just a couple hours before kickoff is something some will never heal from and it was unclear at first if there would even be a game that day.

But Rudolph and Co. showed up and quickly dispatched a Kansas team that would go win-less on the year. More importantly, they gave fans inside the stadium and at home a short reprieve from a horrific day.

At Texas Tech (70-53)

The 7-0 Cowboys headed to Lubbock to face a 5-3 Red Raider team fresh off of a blowout loss in Norman to OU. But, as they tend to in Lubbock, things got interesting really quickly with Tech taking an early 17-0 lead. The Cowboys climbed back in it but didn’t have take the lead until the end of the third quarter. More late-game heroics by QB1b (Walsh) and James Washington would have won the Biletnikoff had the vote been take directly following this game. On four catches, he recorded 200 yards and two scores.

TCU 2015 (49-29)

This was the Cowboys’ best game of the 2015 season. For much of the year, they had struggled to dispatch lesser foes and lived up to the “Cardiac Cowboy” moniker. But when the No. 10-ranked Horned Frogs rolled into Stillwater with Heisman-hopeful Trevone Boykin in-toe, OSU showed up.

The defense — and specifically Chad Whitener — derailed Boykin’s Heisman campaign while Rudolph and the offense stamped its name onto college football’s national landscape as a group to watch. Rudolph threw touchdown passes of 48, 50, 74 and 82 yards.

At Iowa State 2015 (35-31)

The thought of this trip elicits pause in OSU fans everywhere. This year, the unbeaten Cowboys almost fell for the Jack Trice trap. Again, the Pokes fell behind on the road but this time they didn’t take the lead until the waning minutes of the fourth quarter thanks to a J.W. Walsh-Jeff Carr connection.

Don’t forget. OSU heads back to Ames this year and if these next two games are any indicator we could be looking at an 11:00 a.m. kickoff on November 11 — in Ames. Eleven, eleven, eleven. Send help!

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