Through Three Games, This Is Mike Gundy’s Most Dominant Team

Oklahoma State opens Big 12 play on Saturday with a formidable opponent in 16th-ranked TCU. So to put a bow on the non-conference let’s stop and appreciate just how dominant the Cowboys have been so far in 2017.

A blowout of Central Arkansas, Southeastern Louisiana, South Alabama is not surprising and really doesn’t tell us much. But which of us expected the Cowboys to dominate in all three games, including a Pitt team (on its field) that OSU barely beat a year ago? From the opening drive? I didn’t.

I wanted to believe in growth, progress, maturity. I wanted the Cowboys to fire out of the gate with the killer instinct we’ve pined for these last two seasons. But I would not have put money on the result we got in a Thursday night season opener against Tulsa or the drumming of Pitt. Not in the first quarter. Not from the opening kick. Sometimes it’s good to be wrong.

Mike Gundy’s squad walked into every game with the supreme confidence that a team has when its coach goes on SportsCenter to talk about his mullet. The type of confidence it takes to let your punter drive his own faux Heisman campaign at the risk of distracting from your quarterback’s — who most would have assumed was a long shot. They would have been wrong.

It’s the kind of confidence a team has when it’s that damn good.

How’s this for a fast start? In three games, Oklahoma State has outscored opponents 59-0 in the first quarter and has only punted once — the opening possession against South Alabama. In Pittsburgh on Saturday, the Cowboy offense took the field eight times in the first half and the only reason it scored seven touchdowns instead of eight was that it simply ran out of clock.

So it should be no surprise that this team exits the non-conference portion of its schedule in better shape than any in Mike Gundy’s tenure. I’ll explain.

First off, the Cowboys went undefeated. That’s happened eight times in Gundy’s 13 years. Check. Next, it tied for the highest scoring margin in the non-conference of any of Gundy’s previous 12 squads. Oklahoma State outscored its first three opponents by 110 points. The only other team to do that is not the one you might be thinking of.

Take a look.

Non-Conference Games

It wasn’t that 2011 team — which this current group is leading in efficiency through three weeks as well. It was Mike Gundy’s second team, all the way back in 2006, that dominated non-conference opponents at the same rate of Mason Rudolph and Co.

The season that would end in the first of OSU’s current streak of 12-straight bowl appearances. That Bobby Reid-led team destroyed Missouri State 52-10 and traveled to Arkansas State and bested the Red Wolves 35-7 before dispatching Florida Atlantic 48-8.

So we’ve got an FCS team and two Sun Belt members. This 2017 team beat one Sun Belt team on the road and trounced an American Athletic team in Tulsa at home — which I might add has averaged 58.5 points per game since leaving Stillwater with just 24. It then went to an NFL/ACC stadium and DeQuinton Osborne carved the brand into the Steelers’ end zone with Roc the Panther.

The Cowboys have had their way with the teams they’ve met so far. Does this non-con dominance mean 2017’s team will end up better than any of those others? No. But, through three games, they have been better. And that’s what is so exciting.