Oklahoma State, Gundy stumble again
A lot of coaches are superstitious. When things are going well, they’ll wear the same clothes, eat the same breakfast or take the same route to work every day, hoping there’s some mystical connection between their behavior and the results on the field. When things are going poorly, they’ll go to fairly extreme lengths to change up something off the field in hopes that the football gods respond favorably.
But whatever you do, Mike Gundy, just don’t blame the mullet for what’s happened to your season.
That beautiful mane of hair, which has received so much publicity and admiration, is absolutely not at fault for the raging disappointment of your 8-3 record. It is not the reason your defense can’t stop anybody or why you’ve lost three home games or why you’re pretty much out of the Big 12 title race in what should have been a magical year.
Fire whoever you need to. Make roster changes if you must. Swap your car, sell your house, go vegan. But whatever you do, coach Gundy, do not go into 2018 thinking that the mullet’s day has come and gone.
In fact, it’s probably become the best thing about watching Oklahoma State as your season hit a new low point in a 45-40 loss to Kansas State. But that’s not the mullet’s fault. It’s simply a bystander in all this. The problem is with your defense, which got absolutely torched by Kansas State’s only big-time playmaker in Byron Pringle, who had four catches for 166 yards and three touchdowns. The problem is with quarterback Mason Rudolph, who hasn’t looked right in a few weeks but had a chance to come back and win the game for you, only to throw four consecutive incompletions on the final drive. It’s been a weird year for Oklahoma State, which started with so much promise, looking like a team that couldn’t be stopped the first three weeks, then fading out of the race.
There’s no doubt that’s going to be somebody’s fault when Gundy looks back on it. But just be sure to blame the right things and don’t mess with that perfect head of hair.
(Disclaimer: This isn’t a ranking of worst teams, worst losses or coaches whose jobs are in the most jeopardy. This is a measurement of a fan base’s knee-jerk reaction to what they last saw. The way in which a team won or lost, expectations vis-à-vis program trajectory and traditional inferiority complex of fan base all factor into this ranking.) Three other miserables:
Michigan: The third year of Jim Harbaugh’s return to college football is almost over, and by this point in his tenure it should be evident to fans that the Wolverines are going to be an elite football program. But it’s not evident. While there were always going to be some issues this season with a younger roster, this hasn’t been a confidence-inspiring run to 8-3. The wins have all been compiled against teams with losing records, and the losses have been ugly. Against the three good defenses Michigan has played this season, they’ve scored a combined 33 points, including Satur-
day’s 24-10 loss at Wisconsin in which they ran the ball 37 times for 58 yards. If his offense doesn’t show some signs of life next year, the honeymoon will be over.
Texas Tech: Saturday’s face-plant against TCU was bad for a lot of reasons. It was bad because it dropped Texas Tech to 5-6 with a finale at Texas the Red Raiders probably won’t win, meaning Kliff Kingsbury is in danger of posting his third losing record in the last four years. It was bad because of the 27-3 margin at home in which Texas Tech passed for 153 yards. And it was bad because TCU was missing six starters because of injury, including quarterback Kenny Hill. In other words, that’s a game Texas Tech not just should have won but desperately needed to win.
Nebraska: Barring some kind of reprieve like they got a couple of years ago, the Cornhuskers will miss a bowl game for the third time since 1968 after their 56-44 loss to Penn State. And by reprieve, we mean getting in at 5-7, which happened in Mike Riley’s first season when there weren’t enough 6-6 teams to fill all the bowls so Nebraska got a bid due to its high Academic Progress Rating. While new athletics director Bill Moos has committed publicly to let Riley coach out the season, we all know what’s going to happen after Friday’s season finale against Iowa.