Notebook: Leftovers from a Befuddling Season-Opener

As crazy as the Cowboys’ season-opener seemed, not a whole lot happened on the field.

It went well against the thought of Oklahoma State having one of the most explosive offenses in the country, as the game featured 10 more punts than touchdowns.

I unloaded a lot of my feelings about OSU’s 16-7 win in my 10 thoughts, but here is the notebook I kept throughout the game.

• Put this in a museum:

• No. 0 LD Brown looks great aesthetically and with the ball in his hand.

• A play never seems over with Spencer Sanders, but he has to throw the ball away here and/or learn to get down less awkwardly.

• Update: NOT GOOD!

• The two unknowns of this OSU O-line were right guard Cole Birmingham and right tackle Hunter Anthony. This shouldn’t make OSU fans feel good. 

Update: This was Hunter Anthony and Hunter Woodard. My bad.

• OK this isn’t going great, but OSU’s defense looks outstanding.

• Electronic whistles sound like an oxymoron, but they are going to get someone hurt. Calvin Bundage just jumped offside and had a free shot at Zach Smith’s blindside. Luckily he was one of the few who heard the whistle. Maybe just give the refs airhorns?

• So, Tulsa didn’t bring its kicker out in time, so Philip Montgomery had to call a timeout and ice his kicker. Then, because he iced his kicker, he brought the offense back out, and it failed on a fourth-down conversion. Interesting strategy to say the least.

• Per Dave Hunziker, Shane Illingworth hasn’t practiced much in the past two weeks, so Ethan Bullock got the nod. It isn’t going great, though. At the half he is 2-for-4 with 3 yards. He also has -8 rushing yards on four carries.

• OSU threw the ball six times in the first half. Do with that information what you will.

• Sanders and Bullock have both rolled out of the pocket and lost yards instead of throwing the ball away. Sanders plopped down on his butt, which led to one of those odd hits, and Bullock just strolled out of bounds two yards behind the sticks. What’s going on here?

• A thought I was light on early in the second half: “Even if Illingworth hasn’t practiced much lately, what is there to lose?” After Bullock’s interception, I was heavy on that take.

• Here comes Illingworth, and it took him one drive (and just three passes) to throw for more yards than Sanders and Bullock combined. More often than not, highly touted recruits are good at football.

• So Devin Harper delivered one of the nastiest facemasks in football history, but it stopped Tulsa from scoring a touchdown. Then OSU gets a goal line stand into a missed field goal. You can’t write this stuff.

• Hey, Illingworth threw the ball away.

• New kicker Alex Hale hasn’t allowed himself to get caught up in this suckfest, so good for him. Not having attempted a field goal before Saturday, Hale hit from 27, 40 and 29 yards out.

• Interesting call to not automatically take a knee there toward the end. Hindsight says it was dumb not to, but what a weird time to have a bad snap.

• OSU gave up six sacks. All of last season, Tulsa had 13 total sacks.

• The thing that disappoints me most about OSU throwing only 20 passes is that we didn’t get to see the depth of the receiving corps. No catches for Dee Anderson, Tay Martin, Langston Anderson or Brennan Presley.