Throwback Thursday: Beating A&M in 2011 Set OSU Up for Massive Run

Ah, the first half of the 2011 football game at Texas A&M. Do you remember it? It was one of the worst of the Mike Gundy era. Brandon Weeden, Justin Blackmon, Joe Randle and Co. put up 170 yards and 3 points in the first 30 minutes of the game. I acutely remember tweeting before half — most of you weren’t following this blog at that time, I just looked it up, we had 74,000 pageviews that month, or 35,000 less than we’ve had since Monday of this week — anyway, I remember tweeting before half that Todd Monken (in his first conference game) had some soul searching to do in the locker room.

Well … he found something.

OSU exploded for 314 yards and 27 points in the second half. Weeden went 47-60 (believe that 60 is tied for the school record with Wes Lunt at Arizona in 2012) for 438 yards and 2 TDs. The 438 yards was a record at the time and so was the 47 completions. The evolution of the air raid in Stillwater was complete, and Oklahoma State wouldn’t lose until November in Ames.

“We came out confident in the second half,” Blackmon said. “We knew we could come back if we played our game and executed the game plan (and) that’s what we did.”

“They did a nice job of coming out in the second half and changing the tempo of the game and taking advantage of it,” Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman said. “They kind of had us on our heels.”

Sherman, by the way, is coaching HS football in Massachusetts right now. That’s how bad the second half was for A&M!

Josh Cooper finished with 11 catches for 123 yards, Blackmon added 11 for 121 and a TD and Randle had 21 carries for 83 tough yards. Future NFL QB (?) Ryan Tannehill threw three interceptions including the clincher to James Thomas.

And of course Gundy danced (for the first time, I believe) in the locker room after the festivities. This was right after Spencer’s wife passed away. What a scene.

As an aside, it’s fun to make fun of A&M, but man I miss playing games there. It was hot as hell during the day, but those night games were something special. 100,000 plus swaying and watching the Ags give one away under the stars of deep central Texas was a tradition unlike any other.

I kid, obviously, but I really do miss going to College Station.