QB Zane Flores to Miss Houston, Who Will the Cowboys Turn to Now?

STILLWATER — The only constant for the Cowboys these days is change.

For the second time this season, OSU expects to make a quarterback change this weekend due to injury.

“Zane (Flores) is probably not going to participate this week,” interim coach Doug Meacham said. “We’re still kind of looking at it.”

Flores left Saturday’s 41-13 loss at Arizona in the final minutes of the third quarter with an apparent shoulder injury.

Meacham said he doesn’t want to tip his hand on whether the Cowboys will turn things over to backup quarterback Banks Bowen, a freshman and the son of interim defensive coordinator Clint Bowen, or receiver Sam Jackson, who has played roughly 20 snaps at quarterback since Meacham took over ahead of the Baylor game.

“We need to have our first practice to try to make that determination, and we will see,” he said. “And obviously I don’t want to give the opponent a two-day advance on game plan.”

Jackson actually missed media interviews on Monday because he’s currently juggling meetings with three different position coaches. Meacham said Jackson will continue to work on more traditional quarterback-related activities more than ever, for example, handoffs, following Flores’ injury.

He’s actually seen twice as many quarterback snaps as Bowen, who played his first 10 snaps of the season on Saturday.

“He was pretty calm, I mean, he’s a coach’s kid,” Meacham said of Bowen. “I don’t think he really panicked at all. Seemed calm, like I said, he’s had a million reps, and he has dinner with a coach every night of his life growing up. … Pretty even-keel, and that is hard to do. When I was 18, there is no way I’d want to go in a football game, I was scared to death.”

Whoever the Cowboys go with this weekend, it’s possible that more options will emerge at quarterback later this season if Flores’ injury sidelines him long-term.

North Alabama transfer Noah Walters joined the team at some point ahead of the loss to Tulsa. The timing was odd, but welcome considering Hauss Hejny’s injury in the season opener.

“He could (help) on down the road,” Meacham said. “Guy has been here a few weeks, it is hard to think that we might throw him out there. Banks has been here a while and has got a lot of reps, so we feel confident that he understands what we want.”

Then, of course, there’s Hejny himself, who led the Cowboys to two touchdowns on his only three drives of the season. He’s been out since, following surgery to repair a Jones fracture. On Monday, Meacham was asked how hard it is to balance Hejny’s desire to return to the field with protecting Hejny’s long-term health.

The Cowboys’ interim might be one of the best-placed coaches to speak on Hejny’s attitude, considering he was one of the primary guys recruiting him to TCU.

“Well, it’s tough because that kid is super competitive,” Meacham said. “Comes from a super high-level, athletic family that expects a lot. … And he wants to play. So I think you’re looking at him potentially being in the mix the last four, maybe five games, but we’ll see. You know, I’m not a doctor, but he wants to play. In my conversation with him, was coach I want to play.”

That timeline puts Hejny back in the mix for the Oct. 25th trip to Texas Tech or the road game at Kansas on Nov. 1. It falls right in the middle of the realistic window that Hejny’s father shared with PFB on when his son could potentially return.

But none of those guys can help the Cowboys right the ship at home against Houston on Saturday. That task will fall to one or both of Jackson and Bowen, for whom Meacham has plenty of advice this week.

“Be simple and just know where your eyes should be and know where your checks are,” Meacham said. “Know how to communicate and the signals. Just the normal stuff, you’d teach any quarterback. I don’t think there’s anything special. … You can create anxiety or you just treat it as business as usual. You can have paralysis through analysis, and so we’re just trying to treat it like it’s a three-foot putt, go knock it in, and let’s go.”