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Four Immediate Takeaways from Oklahoma State Football's 52-27 Loss to Texas Tech

The Oklahoma State Cowboys saw their faint hopes of a Big 12 Championship Game end at the hands of the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
Matt Postins|
Oklahoma State Cowboys head coach Eric Morris.
Oklahoma State Cowboys head coach Eric Morris. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Oklahoma State Cowboys

STILLWATER, Okla. — The Oklahoma State Cowboys had one good quarter against the Texas Tech Red Raiders. That wasn’t nearly enough.

The Cowboys (6-4, 4-3 in Big 12) fell to the Red Raiders (9-1, 6-1), 52-27, on Saturday night at Boone Pickens Stadium, a blackout game that started at 8:30 p.m. and saw Texas Tech grab a 21-0 lead before the Cowboys could muster a score.

Oklahoma State made it an eight-point game at halftime, but the Cowboys quickly lost the momentum and their grip on the game as the Red Raiders remain on track to reach the Big 12 Championship game.

Here are four immediate takeaways from Saturday’s game.

OSU Can Take a Punch …

The game couldn’t have started worse for the Cowboys. Texas Tech returned the opening kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown, courtesy of Malcolm Simmons. The Red Raiders’ first possession ended with a 34-yard touchdown run by J’Koby Williams. After the Texas Tech defense intercepted Cowboys quarterback Drew Mestemaker, the Red Raiders scored on a Terrence Carter Jr. touchdown reception.

With 53 seconds left in the first quarter, Texas Tech was up 21-0. Mestemaker was dealing with a banged-up shoulder.

The Cowboys responded by scoring on four of their five second-half possessions. The defense — aside from giving up an 80-yard touchdown reception to Micah Hudson — showed down the Red Raider offense and forced four punts and a fumble.

By the end of the first half the Cowboys were down, 28-20. But it could have been MUCH worse for Oklahoma State. The key was that Red Raiders quarterback Thomas Castellanos fumble forced by Cowboys linebacker Isaiah Chisom and recovered by defensive tackle Jerry Lawson. The energy went off the charts in BPS after the play.

… But Tech Corrects

Two weeks ago, the Cowboys were on the receiving end of an awful game defensively. They allowed 51 points to Iowa State and lost, 51-49. The following week, against Kansas State, the Cowboys corrected most of the issues, only allowed 28 points and won, 66-28.

It’s funny how football works sometimes. Teams that have enough talent to correct their mistakes play better then next week.

Last week, Texas Tech’s defense was gutted by West Virginia’s offense in a 53-48 victory. It was rough. The Red Raiders did not look good, and it led some to believe that the unit was vulnerable to an offense like Oklahoma State’s.

Well, what a difference a week makes. The Red Raiders got a week to correct what ailed them against WVU and they did about as good a job as any Big 12 team has done against OSU’s offense.

What worked? Texas Tech did a great job of defending the Cowboys outside zone read run game. Every yard that running back Caleb Hawkins gained was tough, aside from the 42-yarder he broke off early in the game. OSU’s wide receivers had a hard time getting open and Hawkins ended up leading the Cowboys in receptions.

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But what really clicked was Texas Tech’s pass rush. Quarterback Drew Mestemaker was assaulted all night from the interior and the edge. In fact, the Red Raiders’ edge rushers played as well as they’ve played all season. Mestemaker took an early hit and while he seemed to get his arm strength back, he was rarely comfortable in the pocket. The sack and hurry numbers don’t really tell the story of what the front four did to Mestemaker. He was move more than in any game this season.

Aside from the second quarter, the Cowboys never had proper momentum in the game.

That Stagnant Third Quarter

The Cowboys got the football to start the third quarter. They had the momentum — and Cowboys fans know how head coach Eric Morris feels about momentum.

Well, the momentum disappeared. By the end of the quarter the Cowboys were down, 35-20, and it was on them.

OSU’s first drive of the third quarter ended with the Cowboys failing to gain a yard to move the chains on third down and fourth down. Tech turned that change of possession into a 45-yard touchdown pass on one play.

The next drive? The Cowboys got to the Texas Tech 25 and went for it on 4th-and-3 but quarterback Drew Mestemaker’s sprint for the first down fell short by a yard. The Cowboys were fortunate the defense forced a punt.

OSU’s other two drives ended in punts. It was a far cry from the second quarter when they turned the game around.

The issue? Those short yardage plays that have been hard on OSU all season. The three plays the offense needed didn’t feature terribly creative play calls and the offensive line was shoved around.

In the final analysis, that third quarter cast the die on the game for the Cowboys. They didn’t have a chance after that.

The Dream is Dead

Everyone knew the Oklahoma State Cowboys were going to have a tough time getting to the Big 12 Championship game after losing two games. But entering the game Oklahoma State got a bit of a gift — a Houston loss to Colorado on Friday.

That was a loss the Cowboys would have needed to have a shot at reaching the title game because the Cougars beat the Cowboys earlier this year. OSU needed Houston out of the picture and Colorado did them a solid.

Oklahoma State had to beat Texas Tech to stay alive. A Cowboys win would have damaged Tech’s hopes too because that would have handed the Red Raiders a second loss and given OSU a tiebreaker.

But it didn’t matter. Tech won and still controls its own destiny to reach the Big 12 Championship game. The Cowboys lost and their shot at a Big 12 title game is done. With two games remaining, the attention shifts to playing the season’s final two games and setting up for a bowl game in December.

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Matthew Postins
MATT POSTINS

Matthew Postins is the publisher of Oklahoma State on SI. He is an award-winning sports journalist who was formerly the editor of the College Football America Yearbook and covers the Big 12 Conference for Heartland College Sports.

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