What to Make of Another Big 12-Opening Loss for Gundy and OSU

You can look at Oklahoma State’s 36-30 defeat to No. 12 Texas on Saturday through two lenses.

The first, that of a pessimist. The woe is me crowd. The yeah, throw this season in the dumpster crowd.

This crowd was not a fan of the play-calling against the Longhorns. This crowd took umbrage with that now-infamous fake field goal. This crowd … is calling for Dru Brown to see more reps.

Full disclosure: this crowd might just be the worst.

Then there’s the lens of an optimistic. This view may have a shade of orange in its prescription. In this crowd, some may be prepared to dub Spencer Sanders an all-timer. This crowd didn’t hate the fake field goal, despite the unusual circumstances. This crowd actually thinks Oklahoma State, a team that may have been an onside kick recovery away from a massive upset, might be a good football team.

(OK, I give. This crowd is definitely me.)

It’s incredible just how much a narrative can shift, isn’t it? Last year, against Iowa State, Oklahoma State was arguably a dropped Tylan Wallace deep ball — which he rarely ever does in any circumstance — from a Cyclones comeback. Instead, the sky began falling. And it kept falling.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/685171123″ params=”color=#ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”300″ iframe=”true” /]

Last season was a cautionary tale that sometimes an early narrative can actually be right. It turned out, OSU last season was just an OK football team. Nothing special. Six regular season wins, six regular season losses. The definition of average.

Is a loss to Texas the same warning sign? Despite that feeling in your gut you got when the clock read all zeroes on Saturday night, I don’t believe so. This much-maligned defense gave up only 36 points — two weeks removed from mighty LSU (heavily sarcastic air quotes) gave up 38. (LSU won, alas.) That questionable play-calling? It’s Mike Gundy and Sean Gleeson — two brilliant offense minds who uncharacteristically left points on the field. And oh, the talent level? On both sides of the ball, OSU has the horses to not only rebound and reclaim momentum in Big 12 play, but to reinforce that feeling you might have stashed away just below that Texas knot, that one that tells you that, perhaps, this team isn’t last year’s team. This team has moxie, spunk.

And by golly, this team, despite a deflating Texas loss, is pretty stinkin’ good.