We’re two weeks past Halloween, but on Saturday evening in Ames, Iowa, the Oklahoma State Cowboys had to confront some ghosts.
On a mid-November night in 2011, Mike Gundy’s team stood tantalizingly close to a spot in the BCS National Championship Game. The Cowboys could taste it, knowing that with just a few more wins to close out the Big 12 schedule, they’d face the LSU Tigers for the whole enchilada — or rather, the whole beignet — in New Orleans.
Keep in mind that in 2011, the Big 12 — reduced in size after the recent departures of Nebraska and Colorado in 2010 — no longer had a conference championship game. To be more specific, 2011 was the first year in which the Big 12 played without a conference title tilt. In retrospect, the presence of a 13th game might have given the Cowboys just enough of a boost to overtake Alabama for the spot in the natty. At any rate, however, Oklahoma State knew when it traveled to Jack Trice Stadium that as long as it went unbeaten, a one-loss Alabama team would not have been able to face LSU.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
You know how that story ended: Oklahoma State lost a fourth-quarter lead; missed a field goal which would have won the game in regulation; and stumbled in overtime, losing a 37-31 decision which gave voters enough reason to put Alabama in, and OSU out. The decision was a poor one by voters; Oklahoma State’s strength of schedule in a deep Big 12 gave the Cowboys — a conference champion — more meat on the bone than Bama, a non-winner of its conference. Sure, Oklahoma State suffered the far worse loss, but “quality of loss” is one game; quality of resume is a 12- or 13-game proposition.
Nevertheless, Oklahoma State learned a lesson in that 2011 season: Don’t leave matters up to other voters.
Finish the job yourself and leave no doubt.
This was the ghost the 2015 Cowboys had to chase away, and when Iowa State took a 24-7 second-quarter lead, marking the second time the Pokes had trailed by at least 17 in a game and the third time they had trailed by at least 15, they had to wonder if the ghosts of Ames would haunt them throughout the offseason… again.
This team, unlike the 2011 squad, wouldn’t allow the weight of the moment to collapse on a special season.
It needed one special break, but it took full advantage of it. Great teams do that, and Oklahoma State’s season still has a chance to be great after a thrilling 35-31 comeback win in Jack Trice Stadium.
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With nearly six minutes left in regulation, facing third and long on its own side of the field, Oklahoma State — which converted over 65 percent of its third downs in this game, one being an intentional running play and another being a failure it converted on fourth down — appeared to have faltered. A pass in the right flat to a receiver who never looked back at the ball fell harmlessly to the ground.
There was a pause, however, as a flag was thrown.
Defensive holding on Iowa State? Twelve men on the field on Iowa State?
No.
There was no penalty on Iowa State.
Yet, the play had run its course. A receiver went out for a pass. The quarterback threw it. No one on the Iowa State defense stopped. Naturally, then, if the penalty was on Oklahoma State, Iowa State would decline it.
Except it couldn’t.
The officiating crew wasn’t able to whistle the play dead at an early-enough point for the players to hear the whistle. The action proceeded, but the play was in fact dead.
Oklahoma State got another chance, and on the next play, Mason Rudolph threw a dart for a first down. The Cowboys subsequently scored the go-ahead touchdown with 3:06 left, and an Iowa State offense which ran extremely well but threw quite poorly was not up to the task of coming back.
Oklahoma State, thanks to game MVP Marcell Ateman (8 catches, 132 yards, 1 TD, and several third-down conversions), avoided the landmine which blew up its 2011 national title hopes. The Cowboys enabled their season to come one step closer to the national title game, one step closer to following the journey of other teams from the recent past — 2002 Ohio State and 2012 Notre Dame come to mind — which constantly wiggled out of trouble for three months.
These Cardiac Cowboys almost always live on the edge, but they always rescue themselves. They almost always look frail at some point in a game, but they always respond to significant scoreboard adversity as perfectly as possible.
Such is the magic of a national championship season.
With two more wins, OSU knows it will have a ticket to the semifinals on New Year’s Eve.