Spencer Sanders Out After Thumb Surgery, OSU to (Hopefully) Go with Dru Brown

Spencer Sanders will miss the West Virginia and OU games to end Oklahoma State’s regular season after undergoing surgery to repair his throwing hand following an injury in the Kansas game over the weekend, multiple sources told Pistols Firing this week.

Dusty Dvoracek was the first to report this, and the Oklahoman confirmed it as well.

I’ve been told that Spencer Sanders had surgery on his thumb. Absolutely hate to hear this news as it seemed like he had really turned a corner and was playing some really good football. Regular season over, but it will be interesting if he will be able to return for the Bowl.

— Dusty Dvoracek (@DustyDvoracek) November 21, 2019

Sanders came out of the KU game in the third quarter and was relieved by senior Dru Brown, who threw for 70 yards and a TD on just five passes.

Mike Gundy said on Monday that Sanders was with the team on Sunday evening, but he didn’t exactly slam the door shut on whether Sanders’ injury would linger into this week’s game against West Virginia.

It has.

And so Sanders’ freshman regular season is over. He finishes with a nice 7-3 record, the most passing yards by a freshman in OSU history (2,065) and a hearty 625 rushing yards as well. The unfortunate part (among many) is that he doesn’t get a shot at an OU defense that looks like it would willing give QB rushing yards to you and me if we had eligibility.

Brown will likely take over in Morgantown in what has become a suddenly-tense and big game for the Cowboys, who opened as 8-point favorites on the road. And this is why QB depth is so monumental, especially when you’re intent on running the ball like OSU is.

With 137 touches, Sanders has the fourth-most rushes in the Big 12 this year behind just Chuba Hubbard (259), Pooka Williams (162) and Jalen Hurts (152).

OSU — which has rushed it 323 times (!!) in conference play — is one of just two teams above the 275 mark. The two-headed Sanders-Hubbard rushing duo is their offense right now. It’s been good, too, as those two have combined for 1,600 yards in conference games, 600 more than the next-best duo of Kennedy Brooks and Jalen Hurts.

So now Brown will close. Maybe. There’s been a lot of behind-the-scenes smoke in recent days about a potential injury with him as well, but it sounds far less serious than Sanders’. I’m betting that Brown will start on Saturday. If not, then it could be [triple-checks depth chart] freshman Brendan Costello at the reins.

Hopefully Brown gets the call though. He’s hung around and hung around and stayed in the mix despite transferring and not playing for two years. No matter what’s happened leading up to this, the way we remember Dru Brown will be defined by how he plays in the next two games against WVU and (especially against) OU.

All the evidence we have of him — at both Hawaii and the few snaps he’s had in Stillwater — is that he can go. Now, going in the fourth quarter against KU is much different than when OU is dialing it up on a Saturday evening to end November, but I’m at least not apoplectic like I may have been in previous years.

This injury is a bummer, if only because Sanders had a real chance to pull a Mason Rudolph and erase everything we thought about him from the beginning of the season. Winning Bedlam covers over a multitude of interceptions sins, and Sanders had momentum heading into the final two. Now it sounds like we won’t see him again until at least the bowl game, if not 2020.