Cowboys putting Mayfield in their crosshairs

STILLWATER – Tre Flowers can hardly contain his eagerness, nodding slowly, with a wicked smile offering a dead giveaway on the pressing topic of the week.

How can Flowers and the Oklahoma State defense finally contain Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield?

“You hit him,” the Cowboys safety said. “You’ve got to hit him. You’ve got to hit him hard, hard as you can, every time you get a chance… legally.”

Easier said than done, of course, as too many Oklahoma opponents know, including the Cowboys, who are 0-2 in starts against Mayfield. While Mayfield rates among the nation’s top passers, it’s his ability to extend plays and throw on the run, or take off on a scramble, that king of the playground persona, that makes him extra dangerous.

“If you’re down the street in the park picking sides on Saturday, he’s your first pick,” said OSU defensive coordinator Glenn Spencer. “You know what he can do. You know what he’s capable of first-hand. He makes you look silly. You have a lot of respect for a guy like that.”

And the Cowboys carry much respect for Mayfield, the quarterback and the competitor.

“He’s not willing to go down on the first tackle,” said linebacker Justin Phillips. “He’ll try to run over you. He’s going to go out there and compete.”

In Mayfield, Spencer must prepare his guys for their most difficult quarterback challenge to date.

“He’s a tremendous ball player,” Spencer said. “He’s hard to tackle, can throw on the run, makes great reads, he’s tough, doesn’t back down from a challenge.”

Mayfield is off to his best start as a Sooner, completing 72.5 percent of his passes with 23 touchdowns and three interceptions while averaging

328.5 passing yards per game. Not that the Cowboys haven’t seen him good.

Last year in Norman, Mayfield passes for three touchdowns in a 38-20 OU win.

In 2015, Mayfield threw for two touchdowns and ran for another as the Sooners rolled 58-23 in Stillwater against an OSU team that played almost exclusively without an injured Mason Rudolph.

This time inside Boone Pickens Stadium, Rudolph and the Cowboys appear more ready, thanks to an emerging defense that seized

the spotlight usually reserved from OSU’s offense in road wins at Texas and West Virginia.

Still, Mayfield is 12-0 in true road games as a Sooner, including a 10-0 mark on the road in the Big 12.

Beyond all that, Mayfield revels in the winning – a little too much, some may say – with his antics well known, especially in enemy locker rooms.

“Planting the flag in the middle of the field (at Ohio State),” Flowers said, “that was real gutsy.”

None of this is new to Flowers, who’s grown

quite familiar with all things Mayfield, from the flair to the winning, dating back to their days on opposite sidelines back in high school in Texas. Flowers played for Converse Judson, Mayfield at Lake Travis.

Even then, Mayfield won.

Even then, Mayfield was bold and brash.

“All of them are that way,” Flowers said of the Lake Travis squad. “They win state almost every year. He had a right to be cocky like that.”

Flowers, however, would like to calm Mayfield’s cockiness. Knock

it out of him, in fact.

By hitting him, often and hard.

Flowers craves that even, because in all these years and the multiple meetings, high school and college, it’s more than wins that have eluded him. Mayfield has eluded him, too.

“I actually have not got a shot on him at all,” Flowers said. “Six years, I’ve never got to tackle him. So I’m looking for one big one.

“I think it’s going to happen this week, for sure. If he takes off running, I want to be the one to hit him.”