Three Numbers to Know Ahead of Baylor This Weekend

Oklahoma State travels to Baylor this weekend in their first road game of the 2016 season, to face Jim Grobe and the high-powered Baylor Bears. The last couple tilts between the Cowboys and Bears have gone Baylor’s way, with the Bears ending the Cowboys’ previously perfect season in Stillwater last year 45-35 and the Bears crushing Oklahoma State in Waco in 2014, 49-28 in Mason Rudolph’s first collegiate start.

Previous to that, the Cowboys had quite the stretch of domination, winning 16 of the last 18 years during the dark days of Baylor football.

Everything you need to know about the 2016 Bears can be found here, but I’d like to look at three meaningful stats going into Saturday’s Big 12 conference opener.

1. OSU owns Texas?

A win this Saturday would improve the Cowboys to 27-7 in their last 34 games played against teams from the state of Texas (79.4 percent).

This is quite the incredible stat, and is one of the most valuable stats of the 2010s Gundy era in Stillwater. It’s not a secret that Bob Stoops has dominated the Bedlam game in Gundy tenure as head coach, winning 9 of 11. But in the grand scheme of things, Gundy’s dominance over the state of Texas and the line of coaches he’s embarrassed year after year is nearly as important for one significant reason: ‘Crootin.

The fact that Mike Gundy has been able to walk into recruits’ homes most years fresh off wins over the likes of Kliff Kingsbury, Charlie Strong, Mack Brown, Gary Patterson, and Art Briles has been a huge advantage, especially for a team that coming in from out of state. Oklahoma State’s continued success over Baylor, Texas, TCU, Tech (and potentially Houston, SMU, or *gulp* Rice) will be key as the Cowboys build the majority of their roster from the Lone Star State. A win in enemy territory over Jim Grobe in his first season in Waco would be a strong first step.

2. Strong away from BPS

A win Saturday would mark the Cowboys’ seventh consecutive win in a true road game, good for the third-longest such streak in school history.

I had to double check this one, but it’s true, believe it or not. OSU’s current road winning streak started at Oklahoma on Dec. 6, 2014 and trails only the streaks of 11 straight road wins from 1943-45 and 10 straight road wins from Oct. 8, 2010-Nov. 18, 2011 (*Sharp’s field goal was good, but I digress).

The Cowboys will make their second trip to McLane Stadium in Waco, this time with a fully-matured Mason Rudolph and a powerful offense, but one that is still figuring out how to run the ball. This will be the first of several very tough road trips in 2016, with Manhattan, Fort Worth, and Norman still lurking. A win this weekend would boost the Cowboys’ confidence to be able to grab a huge win on the road. They’ll need to if they expect to challenge for the Big 12 title this year.

3. Wins over Top 25 Teams

A win over Baylor would mark the 18th time that the Cowboys have beaten an opponent ranked in the top 25 of the Associated Press poll since Mike Gundy took over as head coach in 2005.

This is an interesting stat — let’s take a look at the last six years to see how many top 25 wins per year Oklahoma State has bagged, in comparison with their final record.

That 2011 team was something, wasn’t it? In most years, scoring a couple of top 25 wins in necessary for the Cowboys to reach double digits in wins. A couple of years, like 2010 and last season, the Cowboys have been able to take care of business when the conference was reasonably down, and this season might be similar. Oklahoma is 1-2, TCU and Texas have lost, and Baylor hasn’t looked great at all in non-conference.

After this week, the Cowboys will have a series of winnable games (Texas at home, Iowa State at home, at Kansas, West Virginia at home, at Kansas State, and Tech at home), so a win this week could kick off quite the winning streak.