Notebook: Bedlam Hangover, the Inexplicable and Throwing in the Rain

ORLANDO, Fla. — With the Big 12 title game well within reach, the Cowboys dropped an egg the size of Spaceship Earth on Saturday.

Oklahoma State lost to UCF 45-3 in a game the Cowboys seemingly never had a chance in. Here are three storylines that came from the Cowboys’ postgame interviews.

No ‘Hangover’

In trying to find an answer to the legitimate question of “What the heck just happened?” many will point to the fact that the Cowboys entered Saturday’s game off an emotional high from the week before.

Oklahoma State beat Oklahoma 27-24 in the final Bedlam game on the schedule. Students rushed the field and tore down the goalposts in the east end zone. The talk all week was about how masterfully the Cowboys turned from losing to South Alabama to going on a five-game winning streak and beating Oklahoma.

Then, boom. The Cowboys were served a big ole slice of humble pie here in this month of Thanksgiving.

But, the message was consistent throughout in the postgame interviews in the bowels of FBC Mortgage Stadium: this wasn’t a Bedlam hangover.

“I’m just going to address it right now, I’m sure there are going to be a lot of people talking about hangovers and all that good stuff — there was no hangover game,” OSU linebacker Collin Oliver said. “We practiced the same way we’ve practiced all year this last week.”

That’s a similar sentiment Mike Gundy shared in his postgame news conference, as well. Gundy said the team had a “average” practice on Tuesday before practicing well on Wednesday.

 “I don’t think there was any hangover,” wide receiver Brennan Presley said. “I mean, energy before the game, everybody was talking. Honestly the [Bedlam] game was behind us on like Monday. You get 24 hours to celebrate and stuff, come back on Monday, whenever we have practice, and then Tuesday and the rest of the week. It was onto UCF. The coach told us they’re a great team. Their record didn’t show it, 4-5 I think, but he said they were a great team. It was just a matter of watching the film and getting prepared, you see like, ‘Oh crap, this team has some ballers. They have some players. We gotta get ready.’”

So How Is It Explained?

So, if it wasn’t a Bedlam hangover, how do you explain the fact that OSU lost by 42 points to a team that entered Saturday with a losing record?

Perhaps, it’s just inexplicable.

Oklahoma State mustered just three points and had less than half UCF’s 592 yards of total offense (OSU had 277 yards). The Cowboys averaged 2.1 yards a carry to UCF’s 5.7.UCF converted 50% of its third-down tries to the 17% OSU converted. UCF averaged 8.5 yards per play to the 4.3 OSU had.

Everything went incredibly wrong for the Cowboys.

“I don’t know if there’s a great way to explain it,” OSU offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn said. “I know this, it’s the highs and lows of college football. It really is. Last week, we played well and protected the football, didn’t get behind the sticks and gave ourselves a chance to win that football game and we did it. And that’s the way it’s been for the last five or six weeks. This week was completely the opposite. We got behind the sticks, we got penalties, we got turnovers, miscues on throws, drops and stuff, a bad call — all of it just kind of added up from five or six games into one ballgame.

“It got sideways and quickly got out of hand. When it does that and starts to pour on you at the same time, it’s awful hard to throw the ball around. To try and make a comeback by pitching the football in a monsoon or whatever the hell that is, it’s pretty hard to do.”

Throwing in the Rain

The Knights started Saturday’s game like the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at Disney World’s Hollywood Studios: fast.

UCF had a 14-0 lead about six minutes into the game. It got to the point where OSU needed to throw the ball early — and just as that time came, a monsoon hit Orlando. Splash Mountain had nothing on FBC Mortgage Stadium.

OSU quarterback Alan Bowman started the game 10-for-11 for 116 yards. His only incompletion at that point was an interception that was tipped. From that point on, though, as the rain continued to fall, Bowman was 9-for-25. He had a streak of eight straight incompletions at one point.

It was just the third time in Bowman’s lengthy career that he threw three picks in a game, but it was the first time he did so in a game in which he didn’t throw a touchdown,

“Normally you can kind of throw it in pretty good rain, but for a good half a quarter there, you couldn’t even grab the ball,” Bowman said. “I’ve never been in that situation before. The rain was just so heavy and trying to be able to grab the ball.”