Photo: Brian Bahr / Getty Images Sport / Getty Images
Oklahoma State knocked off South Dakota State 44 to 20 to open the season at home on Saturday.
Ollie Gordon ran 27 times for 104 yards and two touchdowns. Gordon also had a touchdown on a pass. Alan Bowman was 25 of 34 passing for 267 yards and three touchdowns. In addition to Gordon catching a touchdown, Rashod Owens and Brennan Presley also scored on pass catches.
Oklahoma Head Coach Mike Gundy praised Gordon's performance.
“He was physical last year and he looks to be very physical now. I thought he ran the ball really well today, made guys miss and bounce off of him. He made big runs at key times today," said Gundy. "He looks better physically, running-wise, than he did last year, in my opinion. Now, as we get through the next month, we start to play teams that are bigger and more athletic. Not to take anything away from them (South Dakota State), but we’re going to play teams that will be in a better physical presence. But today, I thought he was good from a physical standpoint.”
Gundy was also pleased with Alan Bowman's performance.
“Alan was good from a mental standpoint, based on what I heard from the headphones. He made decisions in what we asked him to do, and his grade in that area, I think, will be really high. That’s where he can help himself and help our team, if he’ll get the ball distributed to the people that we have, because most of what we do is run-pass options,” said Gundy.
As for the defense, Gundy said, "defensively, we played good and then gave up big plays. I almost did the math in my head, there were about four plays that, if we could have taken that away, it would’ve been almost 35-50% of their production. Again, that’s just me doing it in my head, but those are important -- early in the game -- to get those stops and get rolling. One time we were up three to four touchdowns, we could have stopped them and scored again, which maybe would’ve extended the game to where we could have played a lot of other guys, but we didn’t. We gave them a cheap one, dropped coverage in my opinion. Then, offensively, in the fourth quarter, we just sputtered around. We tried to run the ball to use the clock, but we weren’t very good. If I had to do it all over again, I’d just go play fast because I didn’t like that side of it. We were trying to nonchalantly use the clock and move the ball.”