Taking care of business
Run-of-the-mill effort is enough against MAC foe.
Oklahoma State ventured into MAC country — why would a self-respecting Big 12 team ever play a Mid-American Conference team on the road? — and departed with a rather ho-hum victory on opening night Thursday.
The Cowboys, a trendy pick to contend in the Big 12, beat Central Michigan 24-13 in Mount Pleasant.
For perspective, the Cowboys were a 21.5-point favorite over the Chippewas, so the Big 12 went 0-2 against the point spread with TCU not covering the 16.5-point line at Minnesota.
Baylor was a 36-point favorite at SMU on Friday night.
It wasn’t a bad outing for Oklahoma State.
Quarterback Mason Rudolph, in just his fourth game, was basically on target (22 of 32 for 266 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions).
New running back Chris Carson ground out 89 yards on 21 carries.
Best of all, the defensive line, which has two new starting tackles and lacks interior depth, stopped Central Michigan cold on the ground with 28 carries for 78 yards.
But Central Michigan is not expected to be the potent MAC club of a year ago when the Chippewas went 7-6 and dropped a crazy-exciting 49-48 Christmas Eve Bahamas Bowl game to Western Kentucky. The Chips lost a lot of firepower.
But they led 13-10 early in the third quarter.
“We had seen this team on film, and we knew this was going to be a tough place to win a football game,” OSU coach Mike Gundy said. “I don’t think the players picked up that sense of urgency until we got behind.”
Oklahoma State had to figure its ground game would fare much better against a soft defense. Instead, the Cowboys averaged 4.4 per carry in running for 153 yards.
Speedy freshman Jeff Carr from Temple High did not get a carry. He did catch one pass for six yards and returned two kicks for 42 yards.
“Any win is a good win, but we’ve got to get much better at a lot of things,” Gundy said. “They’ve got some players out there that will be like the guys we face in the Big 12, but they don’t have the depth our conference has.”