Oklahoma State just beat the exact team that got their coach fired, and they did it as 23.5-point underdogs under a guy who hasn’t finished his first season on the job. Stillwater responded by throwing a goalpost in a pond. Honestly, so would I.
Oklahoma State Cowboys 39, Oregon Ducks 31, at Boone Pickens Stadium, with the Cowboys entering as 23.5-point underdogs and plus-1100 on the moneyline. This is the fastest full-circle redemption arc college football has going right now: the program that got humiliated into firing its coach just beat the exact team that did the humiliating, before that coach’s replacement even finished his first year in Stillwater.
https://x.com/CowboyFB/status/2098898888593715683
I don’t have great instincts as a bettor, and I know it, but even I felt something watching the same longshot Cowboys bettors kept chasing all season actually hit.
Oklahoma State hadn’t beaten an FBS opponent in 21 games coming into Saturday. They picked a ranked Oregon team to snap it.
About a year ago, none of this looked possible.
The last time these two teams met, Oregon put 69 points on Oklahoma State in Eugene, a loss so lopsided it became the moment everyone pointed to when Mike Gundy’s seat went from warm to gone. It wasn’t the only bad week that followed. A home loss to Tulsa days later, Oklahoma State’s first since 1951, was the one that actually ended Gundy’s 21 seasons in Stillwater, a 170-90 record and $15 million owed included.
Eric Morris got hired two months after that. This is his first year running the program.
Drew Mestemaker threw for 317 yards, added 109 more on the ground, and scored the go-ahead touchdown himself on a 10-yard run that put Oklahoma State up 36-31 in the fourth quarter. Caleb Hawkins ground out 110 yards on 23 carries behind him. Wyatt Young turned a catch into a 52-yard touchdown. Oregon and quarterback Dante Moore still finished with roughly half of Oklahoma State’s total yardage, and none of it mattered until the clock actually hit zero.
Mestemaker also threw two interceptions, and Oregon hung within a single possession for most of the fourth quarter. Oklahoma State didn’t blow anyone out; they outlasted a team that has out-talented most of its schedule this season, which might be the better flex anyway.
Then the final whistle blew, and Boone Pickens Stadium lost its mind. Fans stormed the field, tore down the west goalpost, and carried it about fifteen minutes across campus to dump it in Theta Pond, the first time that’s happened since beating Oklahoma in 2023.
That’s not a program that’s used to nights like this. That’s a fan base that’s been sitting on one very specific revenge fantasy for a full calendar year and finally got to spend it.
Eugene’s flight home just got a lot longer.
