More than 24 hours have passed since Oklahoma State’s stunning upset of Missouri, and frankly, it’s still pretty stunning.
Not that the Cowboys won. That part has definitely sunk in. No, the thing that gets me is how they won.
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If you’d have asked anyone before the game for an upset formula, just about everyone would’ve said that the offense needed to have a big day. And even more than that, one of the Cowboy stars would’ve needed to have a career day. Surely, Dez Bryant or Kendall Hunter or Zac Robinson needed to do something spectacular. Maybe Bryant needed 200 yards receiving or Hunter needed 300 yards rushing. Perhaps Robinson needed to throw for 300 or rush for 100 or both. Or maybe another Cowboy needed to do something out of this world. Maybe it would be Keith Toston or Damian Davis.
But in the end, OSU didn’t have anyone do anything super special. Sure, Hunter had 154 yards rushing and Robinson threw for 215 yards. Yes, Davis had a couple touchdown catches.
Plenty of guys had nice days, but no one had an eye-popping, jaw-dropping day. And still, the Cowboys beat the Tigers.
OSU didn’t need that career day from someone to pull the Saturday shocker.
The reason? The Cowboys are stout.
They could’ve gone to Missouri and won because they used a bunch of trickery or because the Tigers made a bunch of unforced errors, but that isn’t what happened. OSU won by simply doing what it does. It ran its offense and played its defense.
No more.
No less.
That makes what the Cowboys did Saturday all the more telling. They didn’t need to do something spectacular to beat the No. 3 team in the country. They just needed to do what they do.
And right now, what they can do is pretty darn impressive.