The Good, the Bad and the Ugly from Oklahoma State’s Loss to Houston

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The Cowboys came back from Houston with their first Big 12 L and a reminder that you can’t just out-second half every team and expect to win. Let’s try to put a bow on this one by looking at the good, the bad and the ugly from OSU-Houston.

The (Still) Good: Second Halves

The Cowboys are a second-half team, which is not a bad thing to be.

After a loss, it can be easy to lump some of these things together. Would you like to start faster and not need all those halftime adjustments? Sure. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I’d much rather a team have the coaching ability to make those adjustments and the culture to foster that resiliency which we saw from the Cowboys in the second half.

The difference in this game was that the Cowboys succumbed to a couple of issues that have plagued them all year — red zone woes and third down efficiency — among other things we’ll get into. You can’t do all of that while digging yourself a hole like that when you’re playing a good team on their field.

Even after falling behind two scores late in the third, the Cowboys had a chance — and it briefly felt like they would. Again, Houston is a good team with an offense designed to play keep-away. OSU was held to a season-low nine drives and only got two in the fourth quarter. It felt like one more and they might have completed the comeback.

So give me the second-half team. Just maybe clean up some of the other stuff. Like…

The Bad: The Ground Game

The Cowboys got their run game going a bit in the second half, but against a team like Houston you can’t afford to be one-dimensional. OSU rushed for just 14 yards in the first half. That played right into the Cougars’ plans and put Drew Mestemaker in unfortunate position of trying to force things.

I’ll digress a moment here. Mestemaker is the QB you want in those situations. He’s proven that, more times than not, he’s the guy you want in those situations. Playing behind all night, OSU rushed it just 25 times, a season low. Much like with the previous point, you want that guy running your offense. Just need to find a way to not get into those situations.

The Cowboys’ rushing has dipped the last two weeks. After just 110 yards on the ground against UCF, OSU totaled just 134 yards against Houston.

We will give some credit to the Cougars, who are sixth in the nation, allowing just 82.6 rushing yards per game. The only Big 12 team better is Texas Tech who allows just 82 rush yards per game. Hopefully, the Cowboys can figure out how to improve in the ground game before they host the Red Raiders next month.

The Ugly: Penalties

There were a few options that could have gone here, but we’ve already addressed the defensive inconsistency and the continuing red zone woes. So let’s look at some of the needless penalties the Cowboys were flagged for. Several of them really hurt.

In the second quarter, a false start on 3rd-and-10 essentially killed the Cowboys’ chances on a their attempted two-minute drill to try to close the gap before halftime.

In the third, with OSU down just four points, Christian Bodnar got flagged for an illegal blindside block after the play was over. It gave Houston an extra 15 yards, the first down and momentum. On the very next play, Weigman found Amare Thomas for a 51-yard, catch and run to set up Houston on the OSU 2. The Coogs were back in the end zone shortly thereafter to go up 21-10.

And then there was the holding call that eliminated a 24-yard pass to Caleb Hawkins in the fourth quarter.

All in all, the Cowboys tied a season high with nine penalties for 71 yards. Eliminating even just one of those listed above might have made the difference in the outcome.