For the Cowboys a strange and wonderful night

By Jeff Mullin, columnist,  Enid News and Eagle
 

There have been many strange moments played out in Boone Pickens Stadium, nee Lewis Field, over the years.

There was the time Oklahoma State’s kickoff return men got confused and lined up behind Oklahoma’s kickoff team, then had to run the length of the field hearing hoots of derision from the assembled OU faithful. There was the time a swarm of crickets covered the turf during an early season night game, causing players to slip repeatedly on bug guts. There was the time an onside kick bounced off Chris Rockins’ facemask, OU recovered and the Sooners went on to post an improbable comeback victory. But perhaps the strangest, and for Cowboy fans, the most wonderful, came Saturday night.

Baylor’s video game offense was moving down the field. The Bears faced third and two at OSU’s 28 yard line, when Baylor quarterback Bryce Petty went left on a keeper and broke into the open field. He had downfield blocking and a clear path to the end zone. Nothing was going to stop him from scoring and putting Baylor up 7-0.

Except himself.

At about the 10-yard line, he began to lose his balance, after a couple of more steps he fell right on his face at the one. Two plays later, Bears’ running back Shock Linwood tried to stick the ball over the goal line, only to have it slapped away by Cowboydefender James Castleman, who then recovered the fumble.

At that point even the most die-hard Cowboy doubter had to get an uneasy feeling. And that feeling had to increase exponentially as Enid’s Clint Chelf led the OSU offense on a 99-yard drive, capped by a one-yard scoring run by fullback Kye Staley.

So why did Petty trip? Did he trip on his own expectations, on the pressure he felt trying to keep the Bears unbeaten in a venue in which they hadn’t won since 1939? Or was it merely the ghost of past disappointments suffered by the Cowboys on their home turf? In the end it doesn’t matter. All that mattered was that the OSU turned in its performance of the year in throttling the Bears 49-17.

ABC broadcasters Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit spent much of the night expressing their shock over what they were watching unfold before them.

Baylor came into the game leading the nation with an average of 684 yards per game, 300 on the ground and 384 in the air. The Bears also were averaging something like a zillion points a game, give or take 50. Watching Baylor play was like a video game on the easiest setting.

But OSU changed the game, boosting the setting from rookie to “holy crap, these guys are good.” They muscled up on Baylor’s receivers, harassed Petty and stuffed the Bears’ vaunted running game. In the end the Bears wound up with just 17 points, 453 total yards (94 on the ground) and a big-old lump on their national title aspirations.

“Folks,” said Musberger after OSU’s Tyler Patmon had just returned a bad Baylor snap 78 yards for a touchdown, “this is a whuppin’.”

And so it was. The Cowboys, whom head coach Mike Gundy called “terrible,” in a 30-21 loss to West Virginia in their conference opener, now stand at the threshold of their second Big 12 championship in three years.

The only thing standing between them and their goal —OU, the source of much misery for the Cowboys over the decades.

OSU needs to forget about Baylor, forget about all the talk about whether it needs to be ranked higher among the one-loss teams in the BCS, and concentrate on one thing as it approaches Bedlam Dec. 7, back on the turf at Boone Pickens.

Don’t trip.

Mullin is senior writer of the News & Eagle.

The Gayly - November 26, 2013 @ 10:50am