QUICK HITS: Oklahoma State's promising season has gone kersplat after 42-20 loss at Kansas State
MANHATTAN, Kansas — A season with so much promise has gone splat for Oklahoma State.
It’s not even October, and already, the Cowboys have two losses, have no hope of being an at-large selection to the expanded College Football Playoff and are likely to need significant help to even make the Big 12 Championship Game.
Splat might not be strong enough.
Kersplat is more like it after a 42-20 loss Saturday at Kansas State.
Here’s what I saw in Manhattan.
Plenty of yards, not enough points for OSU offense
The OSU offense rolled up 490 yards but managed only 20 points
The Cowboys started well, scoring on three of their first four possessions. They went 65 yards on their first drive, settling for a field goal. A 70-yard drive on their second possession also stalled and resulted in a missed field goal. The Cowboys went 82 yards on their lone touchdown drive of the day, then had a 19-yard drive for a field goal.
That was 172 yards. A good start in a quarter and a half, but frankly, only getting 13 points out of it would come back to haunt the Cowboys.
The rest of the game, a meaningless 69-yard touchdown drive at the end not included, they managed only 249 yards and no points.
OSU’s drive chart until that final touchdown?
Fumble. Punt. End of half. Punt. Interception. Punt. Punt. Interception. Turnover on downs. Punt.
That’s unacceptable offensive production for a team with a tailback like Ollie Gordon, receivers like Rashod Owens, De’Zhaun Stribling and Brennan Presley and a veteran offensive line.
Cowboys blow big second-quarter opportunity
The OSU offense squandered a huge opportunity early in the second quarter.
After the Cowboys hit a huge 77-yard touchdown pass from Alan Bowman to Stribling, the Cowboy defense came up a huge play of its own. Cam Smith intercepted a terrible throw by Wildcat quarterback Avery Johnson, and OSU took over at the K-State 33-yard line.
Short field. Lots of momentum. Time to strike.
And the OSU offense hit a nice 13-yard pass on first down, Bowman to Ayo Shotomide-King. But then, it ran back-to-back quarterback keepers that netted only 4 yards. One quarterback keeper for Bowman might be one too many. But two? On consecutive plays?
Not good.
The Cowboys failed to move the chains and settled for a field goal.
It felt like a big missed opportunity.
That feeling only compounded less than a minute of game time later when K-State scored on a two-play, 81-yard drive. A 37-yard run with a 15-yard horse-collar penalty was followed by a 19-yard touchdown pass.
And like that, OSU’s momentum was gone and K-State took a 14-13 lead that it never relinquished.
Cowboy defense struggles with explosive plays
A week after a valiant effort against Utah, the OSU defense struggled to limit big plays.
K-State had six pass plays that went for more than 15 yards and nine running plays of more than 10 yards. That included three rushes of more than 30 yards, all by Wildcat tailback DJ Giddens.
Without those nine chunk rushing plays, K-State only had 82 yards on 25 carries.
But of course, those chunk plays matter.
Five of K-State’s six touchdowns came on big plays.