Worst Loss of Rudolph Era Means Oklahoma State’s 2017 Season Will End in Disappointment

There is no other way to look at this now. Oklahoma State’s 2017 football season is a disappointment. They came into the year with their sights set on the Big 12 title and maybe more, but will now likely end with a 9-3 regular season record and (at best) an Alamo Bowl appearance.

In most years, that’s a solid showing. But this is not most years.

After next week’s game, Oklahoma State will have been favored in all 12 regular season games. All 12! It will have gone 6-0 on the road (impressive!), and it will have gone 3-3 at home (not impressive!)

All year, teams threatened to bust up Oklahoma State’s dream of a second Big 12 Championship. All year Oklahoma State — the Cardiac Cowboys, we said — held them at bay. Until Saturday in Stillwater when 20.5-point underdog Kansas State, which came into the game with the No. 128 pass defense in the country, beat OSU 45-40 as a pre-Thanksgiving present for the 60,000 in attendance (and much fewer after a putrid first half).

There is plenty of blame to go around, and everyone deserves some of it. Mason Rudolph had a very confusing game in which he looked like both 1. A true freshman and 2. A fifth-year senior Heisman candidate. Oklahoma State’s defense looked lackluster early, and A.J. Green and Rodarius Williams got blowtorched by a third string QB all day to the tune of 204 yards and 3 TDs (which for Kansas State is like throwing for 750 and 10).

The Wildcats, despite barely even trying to gain yards late, notched 6.8 yards per play compared to Oklahoma State’s 6.1. That’s not good.

Oklahoma State looked like it was in the middle of implementing a new offense while simultaneously breaking in a new QB for most of the afternoon. A wild fourth-quarter comeback thrilled, but ultimately OSU limped home on the final drive. And for the second time in three games, OSU has put the game in the hands of its offense (exactly where I think many of us wanted it to be), and its offense has not delivered.

I know it’s not that simple, but that’s how we’re going to remember it.

I also think you can make the argument that given OSU’s team this year, Kansas State’s team this year, the implications of this season and the fact that the Big 12 is still technically in limbo, this was the worst loss of the Mason Rudolph era and maybe even the Mike Gundy era.

What are the other contenders? Houston at home in 2009? Texas at home in 2014? Central Michigan? At Iowa State in 2011? At Arizona in 2012? At WVU in 2013? OU at home in 2013? At OU in 2009? At Troy in 2007? I’m not sure any of those touch just how poor OSU looked for most of Saturday in BPS. Maybe Bedlam 2013. The CMU argument gets turned upside down because 1. This team is better and 2. That wasn’t a conference game. Oh and 3. OSU actually won that game.

First half recap. pic.twitter.com/mQpED8TqxH

— Pistols Firing (@pistolsguys) November 18, 2017

The Cowboys, for the better part of three quarters (and once again at the end), looked like a team that scraped the bottom of the well emotionally and physically last weekend in Ames following an emotional Bedlam and just had nothing left for Bill Snyder’s Cats.

Some of that is probably at the feet of the coaches for not managing the rhythm of the season better (even though they seem to be pretty adept at doing this) and not managing this game as if it was coaching a team on E. But a lot of it is on the players. They clearly either are not deep enough to complete entire seasons or were more emotionally wrapped up in the TCU-Texas Tech game than I was. Or maybe both.

What a wild 180. The OSU defense was playing at such a high level up to WVU game. This might be the worst 3 game stretch on defense in the Gundy era? Worst part is it’s against 2 average offenses.

— Adam Lunt (@AdamLunt817) November 18, 2017

Ultimately though (and quite unfortunately) this game is mostly on No. 2. Mike Gundy has said it a million times. You live and die with your QB, and he put them in a hole early that he couldn’t get them out of late.

Oklahoma State is as good as its world-class offense can muster. And its world-class offense went nine drives in the middle of the game without a TD that included those two interceptions. You can argue that it wouldn’t have even been close at the end without that same offense, but in the world of the Cardiac Cowboys, Ws are Ws and Ls are Ls. It doesn’t matter how you got there.

It should also be noted here that there were multiple drops on the final drive and Rudolph looked pretty good down the stretch. But the flip side again is don’t go nine drives without a TD and throw multiple picks. OSU needed one comeback too many from him over his terrific three and a half-year career.

Single games represent seasons. When we think of 2011, we think of A&M, Iowa State and OU. Hope, heartbreak and jubilation. Just like the season.

When we think of 2014, we think of Baylor, OU and Washington. Promise, madness and delight. The problem with this season is that we’re 11 games in, and OSU still lacks a signature win. The three games we’ll remember? TCU, OU and Kansas State. Surprise, heartbreak and apathy.

Life of rooting on the pokes. Hope, disappointment, a glimmer of hope again, followed by a more crushing version of disappointment.

— Adam Lunt (@AdamLunt817) November 19, 2017

Expectations matter when it comes to interpretation, and this team welcomed them all in July and August. They didn’t preen, but they didn’t exactly quell the rumblings either. Three games in, it looked justified. I am culprit No. 1. I thought they had CFP written all over them after the Tulsa and Pitt games specifically. Finally, I thought, a Mike Gundy team that will smoke inferior opponents.

Now I know I was wrong. A lot of people were. There will be no Big 12 title. There will be no 10-win regular season. There will be no big boy bowl. The culmination of one of the best classes of players in Oklahoma State history will end with a Camping World Bowl against NC State. Yes, it will have a shot at winning 10 games overall, but it will be the emptiest 10-win season ever if it gets there. And 10 wins this season was supposed to be a checkpoint, not a destination.

The reality has set in following Saturday’s loss to Kansas State: This Oklahoma State team just wasn’t what we thought.