Oklahoma State didn’t meet Mike Gundy’s ‘high expectations’ in Week 1 victory

FAYETTEVILLE — The betting line for No. 17 Oklahoma State’s season opener against two-time defending FCS champion South Dakota State was just under 10 points. The Cowboys easily covered that spread with a 44-20 win Saturday in Stillwater, Okla.

Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy, whose Cowboys host Arkansas (1-0) this weekend, thinks it could have and should have been an even bigger rout.

“You know, it’s easy for me to get frustrated because I … have such high expectations for things we do,” Gundy said on the Oklahoma State postgame radio show. “We very easily could have scored 60-something points. We kind of floundered.”

Gundy said the Cowboys offense got away from its normal attack mode after taking a 31-13 lead midway through the third quarter.

“Part of it was, ‘OK, we’re up by three scores, let’s run the ball. Let’s be more methodical,’ ” he said.

There was a problem with that in Gundy’s eyes.

“It’s not really what we do,” he said. “And then when you look back on it, we probably should have just kept with what we were doing because that’s really who we are. And sometimes when you do that — we’ve done this before — you end up just being flat.”

The Cowboys kept scoring after that, just not at the same pace they’d established in the middle part of the game, when they pulled away with five touchdowns in the span of six series.

Oklahoma State out-gained the Jackrabbits, winners of 29 consecutive games coming in, by only 394-388 in total offense. The Cowboys rushed for 149 yards, just 6 yards fewer than their average of 155.3 last season, behind reigning Doak Walker Award winner Ollie Gordon II, who had three rushing touchdowns.

Seventh-year quarterback Alan Bowman completed 24 of 33 passes for 245 yards and 2 touchdowns. The scores came on Brennan Presley’s 6-yard grab and Rashod Owens’ 58-yarder, which made it 31-13.

Owens (3 catches for 81 yards) and De’Zhaun Stribling (6 for 83) are both 6-2, while slot man Presley (7 for 35) is a 5-8 speedster. That trio, plus Gordon’s running and Bowman’s veteran savvy, will give the Razorbacks one of their toughest defensive tests of the season.

Certainly the Cowboys will flash more talent and athleticism than the Razorbacks saw while shutting out Arkansas-Pine Bluff and surrendering just 130 total yards last Thursday.

Gundy lamented an inconsistent run game for the Cowboys and a few coverage lapses that helped the Jackrabbits manufacture 20 points.

“It’s real simple,” he said. “We didn’t run the ball as good as we should have in my opinion. I think some of it was schemes. I’m not real pleased with that, but I’ll just wait and look and see. And then we had some issues inside on backer run throughs at times that we should be better on.”

However, he praised South Dakota State for being a strong opponent.

“They hadn’t lost a game in so long, you get to a certain point you don’t actually think you can lose,” he said. “So that’s why we had to take the game from them.

“I really believe (in) those two areas, OK: Eyes on the guys, don’t drop coverage; rush the ball better. And then get better because each week the teams are going to get better and better.

“Arkansas obviously had a blowout game and Tulsa blew somebody out. The point being, it’s going to get tougher each week so we’ll have to have a really good week of practice.”