Cowboys Get Second Straight Weekend Off and Just One Big 12 Prediction to Make

STILLWATER -- For the second straight week the Oklahoma State Cowboys have worked on improving themselves without a game to play on Saturday. This is the first time that has happened since the last pandemic, the Spanish Flu pandemic of 2018. You can read about that in Marshall Levenson's look back.

It is something that Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy has never navigated, but my eyes saw a team this week that was practicing hard, seemed ready to knock somebody's head off. It was a physical week, especially on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"They practiced well, our attitudes are good, our enthusiasm's good, effort's good," Gundy told the media on Thursday in his Zoom conference. "We're getting a lot of work accomplished, so I feel about as good as a guy could feel going through another open week."

Still, this is weird and for a program that prides itself and near military routine, scheduling, and efficiency not knowing what the next week will bring, much less the next day is difficult.

"Personally for me, it's been the organization and structure," Gundy answered when asked what about the pandemic and the games being postponed bothered him the most. "Our calendar here for 15 years has been done one year in advance. I'm having to change meetings, practices, times, lifts, meals, all the different things that we have in place to give our players the best chance for success. (Those things) have been altered every 3-4 days. For me, that takes a lot of time because you can't just throw things together."

Another concern for Gundy that this week kind of helped with was conditioning. With the longer, but less intense fall camp Gundy and the head of strength and conditioning Rob Glass felt the team wasn't in the same kind of shape they have been in years past. They worked on conditioning some more during this second straight bye week.

With Oklahoma State at Baylor by the wayside, that left just one Big 12 game for Saturday.

Big 12 Predictions

Season: Record vs. Spread - 11-10 Record Straight Up - 13-8

Last Week: Record vs. Spread - 1-2 Record Straight Up - 2-1

This Week - Oct. 17, 2020

Kansas (+23) 13

@West Virginia 38

11 a.m. on FOX - This is your Big FOX at noon game because the Big 12 had nothing else to offer up. That is almost as disappointing as my picks that are sliding in the wrong direction.

Last Week - Oct. 10, 2020

Oklahoma (-2.5) 37

#22 - Texas 34

Actual Score: 53-45 Oklahoma in 4 OT

Texas Tech (+12.5) 26

@#24-Iowa State 38

Actual Score: 31-15 Iowa State

Kansas State 20

@TCU (-9.5) 35

Actual Score: 21-14 Kansas State

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