Outside shot at playoffs for Oklahoma State vs. Baylor

ARLINGTON, Texas — Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy believes his team has been in playoff mode for several weeks.

With one more win and a little help, the fifth-ranked Cowboys could be one of the four teams in the College Football Playoff. A victory in their first conference championship game also would give them their second Big 12 title.

“Essentially, we’ve been in a playoff run week to week or Big 12 championship run the last four weeks,” Gundy said. “If you don’t win these last three or four, win enough of them, you don’t get in the game anyway.”

A week after a rivalry win in Bedlam that knocked six-time defending Big 12 champion Oklahoma out of contention, Oklahoma State (11-1, No. 5 CFP) plays ninth-ranked Baylor (10-2, No. 9 CFP) in the Big 12 title game Saturday.

When Oklahoma State won the Big 12 title in 2011, it was the first of six consecutive seasons the league didn’t have a championship game. That was also three years before the debut of the four-team playoff. With a win Saturday, the Cowboys could be positioned to make the CFP, depending on what happens with Georgia, Michigan, Alabama and Cincinnati.

“It’s hard not to look at it,” Oklahoma State safety Tanner Mccalister said. “I want to sit up here and say I’m thinking about this game, which obviously we are, but we know what’s at stake.”

The Cowboys were going to be in the Big 12 title game no matter what happened against the Sooners in the Bedlam game. But winning prevented backto-back games against their in-state rival and put Baylor in the championship game.

“The first thing that pops out, that was our first really road environment,” Baylor coach Dave Aranda said. “Pressure creates abnormal behavior … there were a lot of unforced errors in that game, things unfortunately that we could control that we didn’t do a very good job with.”

Still, the Bears are in their second Big 12 title game in three seasons. They made it in coach Matt Rhule’s final season before he went to the NFL, and they have returned. They went 2-7 last year in Aranda’s pandemic-altered debut, then added offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes.

“When I got here, I saw the talent and the work ethic, and then with the new staff coming in I knew there was a different mindset going on, and everyone was moving in the same direction,” transfer receiver Drew Estrada said. “When you have that going on and start winning games and have the momentum, you see what’s happened this year.”