Oklahoma State QB Alan Bowman Still Positive after Rough Outing against Utah

STILLWATER — Coming off perhaps his worst game as a Cowboy, Alan Bowman met with reporters after Oklahoma State’s Monday practice, and his steady positivity was still evident.

OSU’s quarterback, Bowman got pulled and re-inserted in OSU’s 22-19 loss to Utah on Saturday. He captained an offense that recorded just 119 yards of total offense in the first half — a half where Bowman was 8-for-22 for 89 yards and an interception. That led to his benching, where redshirt sophomore Garret Rangel played for four series before Bowman re-entered. But despite that nightmare of a day, Bowman was confident and positive when he spoke with reporters Monday.

“The one plus of playing seven years is I’ve been through a lot,” Bowman said. “I would not be here right now if I was a five-star recruit and being in the NFL three and done, right? That’s not my story. I would not be here if I was that guy. To say the situation that we were in, I’d been there before, I have — multiple times. It’s nothing that’s gonna change my perspective. It’s nothing that’s gonna change my mentality.

“That’s just kind of my outlook on life and everything football aside is, you know what, sometimes you’re not gonna have a great day. Sometimes, you know what, you might not agree with everything. But what can you do but put your head down and work?”

Bowman and the offense were able to move the ball about midway through the fourth quarter, but at that point it was too late. The Cowboys were down 22-3 with six minutes to play before the two touchdowns made it look a bit more respectable.

Bowman said the Utes ran Cover 1 or a Cover 1 blitz for about the first 35 snaps of Saturday’s game, which gave the Pokes some problems.

“I think it was our first big test on the defense, and they pretty much played Cover 1 and had a deep safety, No. 15, who was a great player,” Bowman said. “That was the first time we had seen that all year — fall camp or not. So, it was going to take some time to get adjusted to a new style of defense that we haven’t seen yet this year. So, I think that initially and then some one-on-one matchups we didn’t win, then obviously some throws I missed and I didn’t execute on. That’s kind of a testament to them on a good gameplan and for us to not respond initially.”

When asked about his benching, Bowman said he wants his team to win any way it can and that he will just control what he can control. Bowman said he talked with Rangel on Sunday and that the two were “tight” and both wanted what was best for the team.

Unfortunately for the Cowboys, they’ve been in this situation before. OSU lost 33-7 to the Sun Belt’s South Alabama Jaguars last season and fell in Ames to Iowa State the next week to start the season 2-2. The Cowboys went onto win seven or their next eight games to make the Big 12 title game. In that perspective, an early season loss to a good team doesn’t seem to have Bowman too down.

“It’s just one loss at the end of the day,” Bowman said. “We can’t worry too much on, ‘Oh my gosh, this happened. Oh my gosh, this happened,’ or, ‘We couldn’t complete this or that.’ Worrying about those things is not gonna make us a better football team. It’s one loss. It’s gonna happen. We still have everything in front of us. We can still win the Big 12.

“Realistically, we wouldn’t want it any other way at Oklahoma State — the hard way. That’s the way we like to do things around here, so, you know what, as we did last year, we showed. I think we’re a better team than what we were last year, so I wouldn’t doubt us to go run the table.”