Beyond the Award, There Were Two Sure Fire NFL Players on the Field Saturday
STILLWATER -- It's hard to look back on a loss with any kind of fondness, but if you were in the stands at Boone Pickens Stadium or if you watched on television then you witnessed two future NFL stars in my opinion. Oklahoma State's Tylan Wallace and Texas' Joseph Ossai are sure fire NFL first-round Draft selections that will be almost impossible to keep from being future standouts on Sundays and any other day of the week the NFL decides to play.
Oklahoma State was the better team overall on Saturday, but Cowboys mistakes allowed Texas to win the game. It was Wallace and his contributions that helped Oklahoma State maintain a lead throughout much of the game and overcome the mistakes the Cowboys made in the way of turnovers on offense and special teams mistakes.
The Big 12 honored Wallace as the Co-Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week despite Oklahoma State losing the game 41-34. If they did an efficiency rating for receivers then Wallace would have a near perfect rating. He was targeted 14 times in the game and caught 11 of those with two touchdowns and the other nine receptions going for first downs. Obviously, the two plays where there were penalties become no play. For some reason the incompletion was not listed as a target to Wallace. My numbers came off grading the video from Saturday. On two of his other targets, Texas was guilty of a pass interference call and a defensive holding penalty. There was one pass that was simply incomplete.
Wallace is always a "player of the week" in the eyes of his teammates like center Ryb Schneider (50) shown celebrating here.
Bruce Waterfield/OSU Athletics
"(Tylan) Wallace had a good game. He's a special player," Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy told me in his weekly Zoom call before any of us knew that Wallace was going to be honored by the Big 12. His attitude's great, his work-ethic's been great, his competitive nature's been great. We just enjoy the games we have with him left before he moves on to the NFL."
Wallace was also named the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week for his performance against Tulsa. He has 35 receptions for 588-yards and four touchdowns. He is averaging 16.8-yards and 117.6-yards a game. The Texas game was the fifth game with double-digit catches of Wallace's career, while it was his 13th career game of 100 or more receiving yards.
Oklahoma State struggled to run the ball some with Texas, but the performance of Wallace should push future Cowboy opponents to give even more attention to Wallace in coverage and should help the running game and more receiver threats to feel open and unencumbered.
Ossai was a beast for Texas, in fact without his performance which included forcing a fumble and recovering one as well I'm not sure if Texas would have won the game. His play truly was a difference maker in a game where Oklahoma State's mistakes helped Texas win the contest. Without Ossai's 12 tackles, six tackles for loss, three sacks, the forced fumble and the recovered fumble then even with the OSU mistakes the Cowboys might still have won the game.
Ossai has done this all season, although Saturday was his most impressive game of the season.
