‘The Little Engine That Could’: How a Children’s Storybook Helped Fuel the Cowboys’ Bounce-Back Win Against Kansas State

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MANHATTAN, Kansas — Eric Morris’ Mike Leach roots were on full display on Friday night when he had the team chaplain read the Cowboys “The Little Engine That Could” ahead of the Cowboys’ blowout win against the Wildcats.

Oklahoma State’s loss in Ames last week took the Pokes’ destiny out of their own hands, but that doesn’t mean that the goal the Cowboys had for their season is totally dead. All they can do now is “chug, chug, chug, puff, puff, puff.”

They got up and over the first mountain on Saturday when the Pokes clobbered Kansas State 66-28 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

“Coach Morris said it — some guys will think it’s childish, but a child’s imagination and confidence, it’s crazy,” OSU quarterback Drew Mestemaker said. “They think anything is possible, so I think that’s the message he was trying to get across, and I felt like it worked.”

Mestemaker has already had his own “Little Engine That Could” story, going from a guy who didn’t start at quarterback in high school to being the frontrunner to be the first quarterback taken in next year’s NFL Draft.

Rather than being a little engine trundling along the tracks, he’s turned himself into a train that everyone is trying to get a ticket on. There were at least four NFL personnel types in Manhattan on Saturday, including three from the New York Jets, who have three first-round picks in the upcoming draft. That group included Jets general manager Darren Mougey.

Morris said that having the team read the children’s book was straight from Leach’s playbook, but he also noted that the self-belief message of the book is the first step to being good in this sport.

“That you can,” said cornerback LaDainian Fields of what he took from the book. “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. And I know I will, I know I will, I know I will. It’s just confidence, man, just having confidence going out there and believing in your craft.”

Fields’ confidence has shone rather brightly of late. He intercepted two passes against the Wildcats, his sixth and seventh of the season. That leads the nation.

That belief could also be seen in the defense as a whole, as the Cowboys defense went from allowing 51 points in Ames last week to giving up 28 (which includes a pick-six) against the Wildcats.

In big picture terms, the Cowboys’ Big 12 title chances aren’t all that high following that loss in Ames, but there is still a path. It involves some help and perhaps a bit of luck in all of the Big 12 tiebreakers, but the path is there nonetheless.

All the Cowboys can do now, though, is keep climbing and chugging up the mountain.

“Obviously it’s a kid’s book, so you have to try to be intentional about it, but just understanding the message behind the book,” OSU linebacker Isaiah Chisom said. “That’s what we really were focused on.”