By: Ishan Parikh
The Oklahoma State Cowboys started off the season 5-0 back-to-back years and are looking to make it 6 straight as they play an inconsistent Texas Tech team. The Red Raiders are 3-2 averaging 35 PPG. They have lost two quarterbacks and are now playing with Freshman Behren Morton making his first career college football start.
The first quarter started with both teams scoring a touchdown on their respective opening drives. Oklahoma State’s secondary improved which lead them to take a 17-7 lead. The first quarter ended with OSU leading 17-14. After Tech got a stop they scored again taking the lead 21-17. They swapped field goals and the Red Raiders were leading Oklahoma State 24-20. This is the first time all year that OSU was trailing at the end of the first half. Before this, they outscored opponents 126-28. The second half started off with a field goal by OSU and Texas Tech responded with a touchdown from three yards out by SaRodorick Thompson. After two punts from each team, OSU scored a touchdown off a bootleg throw by Spencer Sanders. Their two-point conversion was successful and the game was tied up at 31 all. OSU scored another field goal to take the lead and the third quarter finished with OSU leading 34-31. Texas Tech got back-to-back turnovers on downs and OSU responded with a touchdown by Dominic Richardson from 5 yards out. OSU beat Texas Tech 41-31. Behren Morton finished his college football debut and went 39/62 with 379 yards 2 touchdowns and an interception as well as 46 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown. Quarterback for OSU Spencer Sanders got 297 yards and a touchdown as well as 56 rushing yards and two touchdowns on the ground. The leading receiver for both teams was Texas Tech’s Jerand Bradley catching 8 passes for 119 yards and a touchdown. The player of the game for me is Spencer Sanders. He did amazing at neutralizing the pass rush. He scrambled around and still made intelligent throwing decisions despite being on the run.
Despite Texas Tech losing they should be proud. They played the 7th-ranked team in the nation with a third-string freshman quarterback. The Red Raiders had more passing yards, rushing yards, average yards per play, and total yards against Oklahoma State. Texas Tech lost because of their Offensive Line. The strong Cowboys Defensive Front was constantly getting to the quarterback pressuring him and forcing him to run. This caused freshman Behran Morton to get tired while also tiring out Tech’s linemen, therefore, forcing them to play a lot more sluggish and slow at the end. The Oklahoma State Cowboys also were able to figure out TTU and had amazing clock management toward the end. The Cowboys still rank in the top 10 and remain undefeated. OSU and TCU are the only teams in the Big 12 to remain undefeated. I think OSU will remain in the top 10 till the end of the season. For the Red Raiders, their freshman quarterback looks promising and could help the Red Raiders for the rest of the season. Texas Tech won’t be ranked but they have mad potential in Behran Morton. This showed that Texas Tech has the potential to be a solid team in the future and we definitely saw proof of that after how competitive they were against the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
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