Oklahoma State Falling In National Polls?

It doesn't seem as if it were that long ago when the Cowboys were the flavor of the month.

The team was able to reel off two wins in three weeks after losing five in a row, compete in one of those losses against a top five team, and found out the quarterback they were trying to redshirt really was as good as he was hyped to be, at least that's how it looked.

Mason Rudolph hasn't done anything since to prove he isn't any good, in fact the word around the program is that he has continued to grow and show leadership in the locker room. Obviously, these should all be essential when predicting the next season and what should or should not happen.

But it's not. A lot of things go into it, returning players, leaving players, new recruits (who may never even see the field), offseason injuries and the win total from last year. Who cares what the quarterback is doing if the team won only seven games the year before? Not the national media.

So only a few months ago, the team was getting praised, and even recently was labeled as a potential dark horse in the Big 12. But now, the Tulsa World is putting out articles about the stock in Stillwaters faithful dropping.

Why?

As The World mentions, it could be the rough five week stretch the team endured last year, the offensive line was porous and many other reasons. But that was all in 2014, why would it impact 2015? Vegas has the team wins O/U at 7.5.

7.5

Let that sink in. The nonconference schedule is week, that's three wins, so what Vegas is saying is the team may crank out four wins in a conference with a lot of question marks and rebuilding teams. The only sure fire teams out there that are getting recognized are Baylor and TCU, everyone else seems to be thinking, "Well, if ___ can play well.."

So what do the fans, readers and anyone else reading this have to say? Why is the team slipping? I, and Phil Steele as he said in an interview with The Franchise earlier this summer, think it's because people take into consideration last year. The team has a significant hole at running back and last year was only a good decision by Bob Stoops away from being a five-win team.

Again, as The World says, it's hard to explain, but it's also the middle of the summer and the season is still 55 days away as of when this story was published. So we're going to give the fans a chance. What's going on in the polls and why are the Cowboys falling?