New Member Special: Try SicEm365 Premium for $1.00 for one week!
Matt Rhule remembers the first time he made a trip to Stillwater to face Mike Gundy and Oklahoma State. He might want to forget it, but he hasn’t yet.
During the 2017 season, Rhule’s first season as Baylor’s head coach, the Bears (0-5) traveled north to face the No. 14-ranked Cowboys (4-1). Baylor’s offense opened the game with an impressive 12-play 75-yard touchdown drive to take a 7-0 lead. They then gained even more momentum when OSU muffed a punt two possessions later to give Baylor the ball back at midfield.
Todd Nickle
Baylor rushed for 219 yards against OSU in 2017, but lost to the Cowboys 43 points.
But whatever amount of momentum was there during that brief moment was gone the next play as Zach Smith lost a fumble on a sack and OSU outscored Baylor 59-9 the rest of the way and winning 59-16. Baylor finished the season 1-11.
Two years late the storylines leading into the game have shifted for both teams, but specifically for Baylor.
Fresh off a double-overtime victory over Texas Tech, Baylor enters the game ranked No. 18 nationally with a perfect 6-0 record. For the 4-2 Cowboys, a loss to the Red Raiders 45-35 was most recently tallied and they have had an off week to dwell on the five turnovers they committed.
Even with the surface-level trends of both teams pointing in opposite directions, the Cowboys currently sit as 3.5-point favorites. That’s a generous line considering Baylor’s history at Boone Pickens. In eight games in Stillwater since 2004, the average margin of victory for OSU over Baylor is 33.6 points.
The best Baylor team to play in Stillwater, a No. 4-ranked 2013 11-1 Big 12 Championship team, was blown out by the Pokes, 49-17. The Bears are 1-1 since 2004 when traveling to Stillwater as a ranked team with Baylor’s lone win coming in 2015, a 45-35 final score.
Rhule understands Baylor’s history in Stillwater and understands that no one will give his team much of a shot to win on Saturday. A win would move the Bears to 7-0 for the the fourth time this decade.
“We’re excited to get ready for Oklahoma State, an excellent team, an outstanding team, great players, and in my opinion and I truly, truly, truly, truly mean this year after year, I’m just amazed at the level of coaching from Coach [Mike] Gundy,” Rhule said. “I think he’s the best and he wins with different players, he wins with different ways, different offenses, different schemes, but he does it tried and true year in and year out.”
Rhule’s loss to Gundy in 2017 by 43 points was the worst at that point in his career until a 44-point loss to No. 13 West Virignia in 2018. The game was also OSU’s homecoming following a struggle against Texas Tech in Lubbock that was tied 34-34 until the last 90 seconds.
“...We have a lot of preparation to do this week to get ready for [Chuba] Hubbard and [Tylan] Wallace and [Spencer] Sanders and all the great players that they have...”
- Baylor HC Matt Rhule
Because of all the reason listed above and Gundy’s OSU version of the offensive triplets will test his team greatly, there’s no doubt the game will be an uphill battle to even have a shot at winning.
“So obviously they’re coming off a bye week, we’re going to their homecoming, there’s a lot of things that are, you know, stacked against us and we’ll do our best just to try to play football and try to have fun doing it so we have a lot of preparation to do this week to get ready for [Chuba] Hubbard and [Tylan] Wallace and [Spencer] Sanders and all the great players that they have but we’ll focus on us and try to get ourselves a little bit better.”
Hubbard, a sophomore running back and OSU’s star player so far through the 2019 season, has four times as many carries as any other running back on the team with 162 and 10 times as many yards with 1,094.
“I mean, elite, in every sense of the word,” Rhule said of Hubbard.
“I think he is a dominant player. Not a good player, a dominant player. The numbers support it. Sometimes guys have gaudy numbers and the tape doesn’t support it, but he’s got the tape too. Like you watch the tape and you say wow.”
“Part of it is that Sanders is such a dual threat as well. They can RPO off of it, and run the quarterback off it, so you have to be whole in all these different areas because they have a great wideout, they have a great tailback and they have a great quarterback and they have a great scheme, so you have to be whole across the board.”
A redshirt freshman quarterback, Sanders is the second leading ball carrier on the team with 85 carries for 426 yards. He has has completed 63.3% of his passes for 1,333 yards and 10 touchdowns as well, but does have eight interceptions including seven in Big 12 play.
“I think Sanders is going to be one of the next ones who is up for all the awards,” Rhule said. “I think he is unbelievably special. He’s throwing like 18-yard digs sidearm sometimes. The things he can do are really special. He is young, he is playing and he’s got Coach Gundy training him and their staff.
“His ability to run, his ability to improvise, his ability to make all the throws, he reminds me of [Patrick] Mahomes, he’s got all those ability levels and so he is a guy that can hurt you any which way and you have to account for him on every play. Not every quarterback you can say that.”
“You aren’t going to see a guy in all of college football with more arm talent of the guy we are going to see on Saturday. He is sensational.”
© Alonzo Adams-USA TODAY Sports
Hubbard is leading the nation in rushing by over 200 yards.
His primary target, junior receiver Tylan Wallace, has 39 receptions for 740 yards and seven scores. In his third year on the field he’s the most experienced of the trio with 132 career receptions for 2,312 yards and 19 touchdowns. Wallace caught eight passes for 122 yards and a score against Baylor in 2018 on his way to a 1,400-yard season.
“He is as good of a 50/50 deep ball as there is. His ability to go up there and track the ball is beyond elite,” Rhule said.
“Anytime you give him a one-on-one and you’ve got a quarterback that can throw the ball 60, 70 yards and you have a guy who can go get it, you have to account for hey they are going to take a shot with him.”
Unlike 2017, OSU will play Saturday with nothing to lose as losses to Texas and Texas Tech early in the Big 12 season have likely taken the Pokes out of the title race. On the opposite sideline, Baylor is ranked for the first time since 2016 and in the race for their third championship this decade... at least on paper.
Just as Baylor benefitted from the home field advantage, their homecoming fesitivies, and the largest student turnout in the history of McLane Stadium on Saturday, now it’s time to have it used against them.
“The only pressure is in our room,” Rhule said. “We have a standard we want to play at, we want to play at a certain level. So, go out there and play. People think we won’t be able to handle the noise and we won’t be able to handle the crowd and they’ve had two weeks off.”
“I think it’s an amazing place. It’s a hard place to play, it’s a hard place to win. But you know what, we like challenges and we’re going to do our best.”
