Oklahoma State's Downfall Came at Worst Time as Big 12 Became Weaker
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Oklahoma State was on the verge of being a powerhouse not long ago, and it narrowly missed out on a perfect situation.
Looking at the OSU football program in 2025, it can be hard to imagine that this school was a consistent top 25 squad with conference title aspirations annually just a few years ago. Of course, the Mike Gundy era came to an end after two decades of success earlier this season, and it was also a reminder of how unlucky OSU ended up being in this era.
While conference realignment has had many victims, OSU has simply been unable to capitalize on what would have been a golden opportunity just a few years earlier. After numerous years of falling short of a Big 12 title because of losses to Oklahoma in Bedlam, the Cowboys no longer have the Sooners on the schedule after OU and Texas moved to the SEC.
Although there’s no way of knowing how OSU might have fared if the Big 12 had been able to keep its 10-team league together amid the chaos of conference realignment elsewhere, it’s not hard to imagine where OSU might be today if the Cowboys got to play in this 16-team conference a decade earlier in a 12-team playoff field.
While the Sooners weren’t the only team OSU ever lost to in the 2010s, replacing the in-state rivalry with a matchup against teams like BYU or Cincinnati would have almost certainly resulted in the Cowboys making quite a few playoff appearances. Perhaps OSU even could have gone on a dominant run in the Big 12 like the Sooners did toward the end of the 2010s if this is what the conference looked like back then.
However, OSU didn’t get that opportunity. Instead, the Cowboys are sitting without a conference win in nearly two years and are desperate to find a coach who can at least get the program back to competing for bowl games.
As OSU has to look at teams like Texas Tech, BYU and Arizona State become playoff contenders in the new-look conference, it can only sit and wonder what could have been. As one of the worst teams in the FBS, it appears OSU’s playoff ship might have sailed already.
Any hopes of becoming the face of the new-look league have faded, and the old glory days of the 2010s have become just that: the old glory days.
Ivan is a sports media student at Oklahoma State University. He has covered OSU athletics since 2022 and also covers the OKC Thunder for Inside The Thunder and Thunderous Intentions.