Ranking All 94 of Mike Gundy’s Victories: Part 2 - Some Blowouts, Some Close Calls and a Whole Lot of Meh

Mike Gundy is entering his 12th season as of the head coach of OSU’s football program with a 94-47 record and will likely reach his 100th victory some time this year (I predict before October 23rd). In light of this, I felt this summer was the perfect opportunity to take a look at the 94 that have come and gone and decide which were the worst, which were the best and which ones we should just keep forgetting ever happened.

I’ve broken the list down into five parts:

PART 1: Scars, Scares and Stupid Scheduling

PART 2: Some Blowouts, Some Close-calls and a whole lot of Meh.

This is the part where people are going to start to disagree with me. To be honest this was the hardest part of the list to put together. However I tend to follow three rules: 1. Blowouts over bad teams are not good games. 2. Not all close games are good ones. 3. Some wins are just wins. No more, no less.

71. Missouri State (9-13-2008) Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way; The Final FCS victory. How did a blowout win over an FCS team make it this far? For only the second time in school history OSU had three 100 yard rushers in a single game: Keith Toston, Beau Johnson, and Kendall Hunter. Cowboys run away 57-13.

70. @ UTSA (9-9-2013) If there’s one thing I dislike about Gundy’s coaching, it’s his willingness to pull the foot off the pedal late in games. In what was supposed to be a competitive game OSU was up 42-7 to start the fourth quarter. UTSA scored 28 in the final 14:10. OSU wins 56-35

69. Insight Bowl vs Indiana (12-31-2007) Again, Gundy taking his foot off the pedal. OSU led 35-10 at halftime and 42-17 after three. A blow out win with a lame ending. Cowboys win 49-33.

68. UTSA (9-13-2014) When ESPN doesn’t even bother with a recap of your game, it’s hard to rank it high. This was supposed to be a competitive game. It was not. Cowboys win 43-13.

67. Heart of Dallas vs Purdue (1-1-2013) I realize this is the largest margin of victory in a bowl game in OSU history. However, it was in a bowl we didn’t belong in against a team that didn’t belong in a bowl game. It was the worst bowl game of the season to watch on television, and if you were there (which I was) it was cold, wet and boring after the first quarter and a half. It was a nice end to a rough season though. Cowboys railroad the Boilermakers 58-14.

66. @ Iowa State (11-14-2015) I get the feeling many of you might disagree with me on this one, but there was nothing enjoyable about this victory but the end. I had horror flashbacks to 2011 for three quarters. I realize there were positives; it got us to 10-0, vanquished some of the residual demons of 2011 and this time WE were the ones that mounted the comeback victory. I don’t care. I hated every minute of this game. The win didn’t make me feel good. Just exhausted. Also, do you realize this was our last victory of the 2015 season? Ugh. Cowboys escaped 35-31.

65. Kansas State (10-3-2015) Remember that game in Part 1 where we nearly lost to a Kansas State quarterback no one had heard of? Oh right that was this game too. This time it was wide receiver Kody Cook. OSU trailed at home. How did it get up this high? The end of the game was solid. Grogan kick for the lead. Interception to seal it. Cowboys squeak by 36-34.

64. @ Kansas State (10-30-2010) OSU’s high powered, second ranked offense sputtered after Justin Blackmon was suspended for a misdemeanor DUI charge. It was a weird week to see the star receiver in trouble for a DUI and while we didn’t know it at the time, an unfortunate sign of things to come for Blackmon. Cowboys win 24-14.

63. Kansas (11-9-2013) It was a 36 point thrashing of Kansas. Justin Gilbert returned the opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown and OSU never looked back. Cowboys win 42-6.

62. Louisiana Lafayette (9-3-2011) We finally unveiled the brand new uniforms in the most anticipated season opener in OSU history… and everyone was disappointed. Remember how bad the grey jerseys looked on television? I was there. They weren’t great in person either. I’m not sure I didn’t rank this one too high. Cowboys win ugly 61-34.

61. @ Baylor (10-24-2009) Robinson was 23-27 for a school record 85 percent completion rate. That’s record has been topped twice since (Weeden and Walsh), so that just leaves it as a 27 point win over Baylor. Cowboys win 34-7.

60. Missouri (10-18-2009) Another of the “No Bryant, No Hunter” games of 2009. A close first half. Then OSU shutout Missouri in the back half. The Cowboys picked off QB Blaine Gabbert (!) three times in the game. (Side note, how the hell did we think Gabbert would make a good NFL quarterback?) Cowboys win 33-17.

59. @ Colorado (11-16-2008) Zac Robinson’s first and only game back in his home state. According to ESPN, Robinson spurned a scholarship offer from the Buffs to play for OSU. A decision I would say worked out for all parties. Except Colorado. But they stunk then and stink now so who cares. Cowboys win 30-17.

58. Iowa State (10-4-2014) This was one of the weirdest OSU games I’ve ever watched. The Cowboys took a 13-6 lead into halftime despite one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen Mike Gundy make, followed by an equally bad call by the refs. Gundy chose to run on 3rd and 2, despite the fact that the run game had been bad all day (and all season for that matter). Desmond Roland didn’t appear to cross the goal line on the carry, but after review it was called a TD. I still don’t think it was the right call by the refs, and felt a bit bad for the Cyclones after it was made. Of course it was all moot when Tyreek Hill returned the 2nd half opening kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown. It was 20-6 after that and the game was essentially over. Cowboys win 37-20.

57. UTSA (9-20-2015) It was the biggest blowout of the series! OSU forced 7 turnovers in the game. It’s ranked this high because this was also the first time the offense we had expected coming into the season showed up. It’s ranked this low because UTSA was awful. Cowboys destroy 69-14.

56. Troy (9-27-2008) This win got Gundy his first 4-0 start and first ranking at number 21 the following week in the polls. Cowboys win 55-24.

55. @ Kansas (10-14-2006) Bobby Reid accounted for 6 touchdowns (5 passing, 1 running) on his way to a school record 457 yards of total offense. He broke Mike Gundy’s record. He’s been passed 5 times since. Cowboys win 42-32.

54. @ Iowa State (11-08-2009) Zac Robinson passed Mike Gundy as OSU’s career passing leader. However he did it only passing for 142 yards and has since been usurped by Weeden. I actually would have ranked this higher if the Cyclones hadn’t ruined a perfectly good shut-out early in the fourth quarter. Cowboys win 34-8.

53. TCU (10-27-2012) Wes Lunt returned. OSU trailed 14-0 early but then scored 36 unanswered points. This was the first meeting between the two teams as Big 12 members. TCU had a pretty disappointing start in the league. Cowboys win 36-14.

52. Texas Tech (9-25-2014) Looking back, we should have known it as going to be a rough season after this game. Daxx threw some beautiful bombs, but he couldn’t throw much of anything else. Admittedly the offensive line deserves plenty of blame. Man, that deep ball was pretty though (skip to :24 and 4:52). Cowboys win 45-35.

51. @ Washington State (9-30-2008) This was the season Gundy started calling offensive plays (which continued until Holgerson showed up). I remember hearing that we scheduled this series after the Cougars were coming off a BCS bowl. This was NOT that Washington State team. Cowboys win 39-13.

Stay tuned for Part 3.