OSU motivated to impact Big 12 title, playoff races
STILLWATER — The road to the Big 12 title game runs through Oklahoma State.
The Cowboys face the top two teams in the Big 12 the next two weeks, visiting Oklahoma on Saturday and hosting West Virginia the week after. The Sooners and Mountaineers meet in the final week of the regular season with the possibility of a conference championship game appearance on the line, though OSU has the opportunity to impact that.
OU and West Virginia are guaranteed to make the Big 12 Championship Game if they win out, but either losing to OSU would allow Iowa State or Texas better positioning while also knocking the Sooners or Mountaineers out of College Football Playoff contention. The 5-4 Cowboys are long shots for the title game and certainly out of the playoff picture, but they have the chance to play spoiler and lock up bowl eligibility all at once over the next two weeks.
“There’s no way we can go to the playoffs, we’re probably out of the Big 12 Championship, so there’s a lot of motivation to knock other teams off,” receiver Tyron Johnson said. “Like, you’ve gotta come with us.”
Motivation for the Cowboys comes from many places. Defensive tackle Enoch Smith Jr., a senior, noted his college football career has only three guaranteed games left. Another senior, quarterback Taylor Cornelius, said there’s incentive to win another game to extend OSU’s 12-year bowl streak.
Coach Mike Gundy, though, hesitates to put extra emphasis on any game, including Bedlam. He repeated the thought of “control what you can control,” wary of making too big of a deal of the next two games. He worries about what happens when the spotlight isn’t as bright.
“Put yourself in my situation,” Gundy said. “They guarantee you 12 games a year and you’re wanting to motivate your team in the locker room, get them to go out there, get them to play hard or give the best Knute Rockne speech you got, ‘Go out there and win one for the Gipper.’ Well, what are you going to do next week?”
“You’ve got 12 of them. They have to motivate themselves. They have to buy into the culture, the system, to do it . ... If you don’t want to play hard, I don’t know what to tell you. Probably should do something else.”
Receiver Tylan Wallace admitted that it’s sometimes difficult to remain determined amid a disappointing season, but games like the Cowboys’ next two offer a boost.
“I wanna see as a team if we can go out there and fight,” Wallace said. “Just because we’re not ranked as high as we were last year or won as many games as we did, I want to see if we can all go out there as a team and still fight.”