Cowboys, Sooners rise to the top of Big 12 football rankings heading into Week 5
Berry TramelOklahoman
The Big 12’s penchant for dramatic, tight finishes carried over to the start of conference play.
Twenty-nine of the Big 12’s 30 non-conference games have been played. Baylor-Brigham Young comes in October. Of those 29 games, 11 were down to the wire. That’s an extraordinary number.
The Big 12 had eight close non-conference games in 2019. Five in 2018.
Then came Saturday, when OU beat West Virginia 16-13 on Gabe Brkic’s last-play field goal and Baylor beat Iowa State 31-29 by stopping a 2-point conversion with 24 seconds left in the game.
OSU’s 31-20 victory over Kansas State was not particularly close – the Cowboys took a 31-10 lead in the second quarter and cruised. The other two conference games to date have been blowouts; Texas routed Texas Tech 70-35 and, a week ago, Baylor whacked Kansas 45-7.
Will that 38/40 percent ratio continue? Probably not. That’s a high standard. But clearly, there’s some parity going on in the Big 12, if not all of college football.
You never know what you’re going to get.
So despite the unrest in Norman and Stillwater over offensive doldrums, just winning, no matter the way, is a good thing. Clemson’s offense has struggled, too. The Tigers are 2-2. They would gladly swap places with OSU, much less the Sooners.
Of course, dominance always is a good sign. So kudos to Texas for its beatdown of Tech. Can’t put too much into one blowout. That could mean as much about Tech as it does Texas.
So when ranking teams, for now, we’ll stick with survival. Winning is paramount, so long as you factor in the schedule.
Here are the Big 12 rankings this week, based on who you played, where you played and how you did.
1. Oklahoma State 4-0
The Cowboys suddenly have two solid victories. At Boise State, home against Kansas State. Not easy to win in Boise. Not easy to beat the Wildcats anywhere.“I told the team I was proud of the way they continue to play together as a unit,” Mike Gundy said Saturday night. “This team plays together more than any team I can remember since I’ve been the head coach. Tonight, offensively, we played much better, and the first half looked like what we have been the last 15 years. Defense played well. They gave up a couple big plays but rallied and held them to field goals.”
2. Oklahoma 4-0
Throw out Western Carolina, and the Sooners have won by five, seven and three. Throw out Western Carolina, and OU has scored four touchdowns in the last 10 quarters.But the Sooners have been winning. Why OSU ahead of OU? It came down to the Boise State game for me. The Cowboys have a (tough) road win. All four OU games have been at Owen Field.
“Great college football game,” Lincoln Riley said Saturday night. “Hats off to West Virginia. Thought they played a really tough, physical game. It was a battle out there. Proud of our resilience.
“I told the guys in the locker room, to me, the biggest difference is, we found some ways here when we haven't been at our best to win some close games. We've shown incredible resiliency and we certainly did tonight. We were a very resilient football team. We're growing. We're improving. Obviously, great effort defensively, holding those guys down.”
Nothing about that will make anyone feel better about the OU offense. But OU is 4-0. The number of unbeatens among the 130 major-college football teams dropped from 33 to 26 over the weekend. The Sooners could have joined the club.
3. Texas 3-1
The Longhorns are immune from close games. They’ve beaten Louisiana-Lafayette by 20 and Tech by 35. The ‘Horns lost to Arkansas by 19.That Razorback game doesn’t look so bad now, after the Hogs thrashed Texas A&M on Saturday.
“It’s exciting,” said quarterback Casey Thompson, a Newcastle High School graduate who has invigorated the UT offense since being handed the reins 2½ games ago. “I think that it shows the ability to not get complacent. Obviously, we had a good game last week (against Rice), but like I said, every week there’s things we can do better and there’s things we can clean up.”
4. Kansas State 3-1
The Wildcat offense didn’t do much in Stillwater – one offensive touchdown – but quality wins over Stanford and Nevada don’t disappear after one loss.And KSU ended up with third-team quarterback Jaren Lewis at the controls. Veteran Skylar Thompson was injured two weeks ago, and new starter Will Howard went down in the first half against OSU.
“Credit to Oklahoma State, they beat us today,” said KSU coach Chris Klieman. “We didn’t play our best game today and they beat us at the line of scrimmage, and we fought in the second half and did some better things on defense to slow them down, but we couldn’t penetrate them and get enough things going offensively.”
5. West Virginia 2-2
The Mountaineers have an excellent defense but haven’t gotten much going offensively. WVU has played three Power 5 opponents, all at least respectable (Maryland, Virginia Tech, OU), and have lost by six, won by six and lost by three. "I love our guys. I love our staff. I love our players," said Mountaineer coach Neal Brown. “I thought they fought their ass off for four quarters. It was a tough, physical football game. I think we went toe-to-toe with Oklahoma here in their backyard. If you look at it, we had chances. Absolutely, we had some chances."6. Baylor 4-0
The Bears opened the season with a 29-20 victory at Texas State. Not impressive, particularly since Texas State has cratered since then. But teams get better, and Baylor seems to be getting better, with a trip to Stillwater coming up.Baylor’s offense was potent in the first half against Iowa State, then the kicking game took over. Trestan Ebner’s 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown gave Baylor a 28-16 lead in the third quarter.
“We talked about special teams being a big factor in this game,'' Bears coach Dave Aranda said. ''We wanted to show our ability to be electric. I'm glad (Ebner) was able to follow through with that for us.”
7. Texas Tech 3-1
It doesn’t seem kosher to have Tech so high, but the Red Raiders do have a solid win (over Houston). That’s more than Iowa State has.Bad news for Tech: quarterback Tyler Shough will miss several weeks with a broken collarbone.
Good news for Tech: the Red Raiders have a backup, Henry Colombi, who has played a lot.
8. Texas Christian 2-1
The Horned Frogs were run over by Southern Methodist. The Mustangs won 42-34, and Gary Patterson has to be alarmed at his defense. “We didn’t cover anybody,” Patterson said. “We didn’t tackle. It’s pretty simple. Got beat and we didn’t tackle.”9. Iowa State 2-2
It’s time to stop being excited about the Cyclones. A squeaker over Division I-AA Northern Iowa. A turnover-prone loss to Iowa. Now a loss at Baylor. The Cyclones aren’t who we thought they were.“We've been down this road since I've been at Iowa State,” coach Matt Campbell said. “The reality of being at Iowa State and who we are is, you have to win in the margins. And that's never gonna change … it's not. And we have to win in the margins, we're going to have to stay the course.
“The area that I still think that we have to hammer away now is do our kids believe? Yes. Did they play four quarters? Yes. Did we give ourselves a chance to win the football game? Yes. It's the little things that we have to continue to work to clean up.”
