Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/10-thoughts-on-oklahoma-states-56-48-loss-to-texas-tech/
On Smith’s debut, Senior Day and moral victories.
Anyone here want to convince me Bowman would’ve done better than Smith today? That’s what Gundy does though. Make sure you play the least talented QB on your roster 
. Because the others don’t have “experience”.
“ Does anyone want to win the Big 12? Or does everyone want to win the Big 12?”
Gundy doesn’t.
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The two preseason favorites, OSU and Utah, are in last and next-to-last, respectively.
In other news, congrats to Kasey Dunn on his 5-year contract extension.
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Is anyone else done with Gordon in the defender’s face every time he makes a play?
This has been going on all season. You are on a 3 and 8 team, man. This bravado makes you look like a jackass, which may cost you $ down the road.
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I feel like Gordon has played his last game in BPS but not in college. This year had dropped his tock to where he is a mid round pick. 50/50 on him going to NFL or the portal to an Ohio State. He will make more NIL money than mid round rookie money.
Hey champ,
He was the 4th stringer going into the season. I think he started after getting actual practice reps and getting familiar with the offense and the staff being comfortable with his grasp of the offense. Also, Tech’s defense sucks. Let’s see if he can repeat his performance before popping off like a jackass. I really hope he does and he’s a future star, but that’s just silly to make any definitive statement. He looked good, but very little pressure when the team is 3-7.
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He’s already been cost a shitload of money with with dookie staff.
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He was here in the spring. Also, despite Tech’s defense sucking, There’s been no indication that Bowman’s turtle moving and Backfoot throwing ass would’ve been any better. In fact, it’s been that way the entire season.
You obviously haven’t paid enough attention to Gundy’s QB decisions in the past, have you? This same exact thing happened with Brennan Presley. He did great in the bowl game in 2020 and ended up being one of our best go to guys. Didn’t hardly play the entire 2020 season. Good luck holding onto these kind of players with the transfer portal open with no consequences now 
.
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Despite our success running the ball, I thought our hand-offs looked slow. I’m sure practice reps will help with that…
My biggest concern with Smith is 185-lb QBs are not going to play very long in major college football. He needs to get with Glass and add 20-25 lbs. this spring.
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Gundy has proven he has a keen eye for QB 1 talent over the last twenty years. It wasn’t but two weeks ago he was stomping that Smith was not ready. In his post game he suggested fans “rip his ass on social media.”
Did I hear somewhere yesterday this is the first time in 125 years of Cowboy football they have lost eight in a row?
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I don’t want to get into the obvious arguments. I just want to say that this was the best 10 take-aways this site has written since I can remember.
Great job of underlining both sides of each point. Maybe we just needed some offensive juice to get this writing staff back on its game.
I’ve been critical of the lack of critical analysis throughout the year, and so, I’m here to say that y’all summed this game up extremely well. Even-handed, fair, and insightful.
Thanks for the content y’all bring us, it’s been a very trying season, but I’m still here almost every day.
Hey champ,
Ridiculous. No one is prepping their 4th string QB to start in the spring. They’re not even running the scout teams. You only get so much practice time and reps. QB4 is not getting them. Period. He’s holding a clipboard and going to QB meetings, sure. Since he moved up to de facto QB2, they probably started working with him more and now felt comfortable.
I also don’t think anyone is benching a QB who led them to a conference title game in a season no one picked them to get to that point after you lose a long-time starter. Yes, Bowman was mediocre and had bad tendencies, but he played well enough to succeed, and you’d expect him to progress instead of regress, but regression happens.
The Gundy QB thing is a little exaggerated. He’s made decisions that were wrong in hindsight, but they followed his philosophy and were rational. He leans towards making the safe choices, but he’s also made some bold decisions when needed. There are also a lot of assumptions like that week 5 Mason Rudolph was as ready to play as week 11 Mason Rudolph. Daxx set a low bar, but he also wanted to preserve the redshirt of Mason if possible.
As much hope as this game might have given us, if we keep either Coordinators we will lose all sorts of talent to the portal and a handful of recruits. These 2 coordinators are in so far over their heads.
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I think you’re missing the entire point here. I’m not saying QB4 should be getting just as many reps as QB2. Try to understand the context of what I’m saying here. I’m telling you that Gundy, as he seems to almost always do, started the least talented QB on the roster again. I said last year I thought Rangel was better. The BYU game itself was proving my point.
The only reason we were successful with Bowman last season was because OG was taking a lot of pressure off him. It’s obvious that the offense is centered around our QB’s ability to take off running. If that’s the case then Bowman shouldn’t be starting at all. Our coaching staff is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE at figuring out who should be taking the most snaps. These guys are making six or seven figures to evaluate properly. The fans shouldn’t be the ones correct most of the time about Gundy and his QB decisions. Especially since he’s played the position.
What Gundy doesn’t seem to realize is that athletes coming out of HS are more prepared for the college game than they were 20 years ago. Gundy is still stuck on “experience” when the reality is that Bowman has all kinds of experience. That still doesn’t mean he’s the best fit for the job. If experienced mattered then Bowman wouldn’t have been QB3 on Michigan’s roster.
Bowman didn’t lead them anywhere. OG was the catalyst to leading them to that game. That would be like saying Josh Cooper led us to the Big 12 title in 2011 when the reality is most of it was due to Weeden and Blackmon.
There’s nothing bold about not switching your QB out after an 0-4 start to the conference and watching him continue to make mistakes until then. Notice how Gundy played Smith AFTER we became ineligible for a bowl.
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Hey champ,
There is nowhere near enough evidence to show that Rangel was better. They battled it out last year and they were pretty even. I actually thought Gunnar should start because he had some decent wheels and looked a little more accurate than Rangel, but really no one distinguished themselves. Rangel looked pretty good in limited snaps, but having a decent series or two doesn’t mean much. Dunn has had some nice looking drives with Bowman this year in limited stretches, and you looked at those few drives, he’d look successful. We’ve gotten a better look at Smith this year than Rangel, for crying out loud, and again… one game with no pressure against a bad D is a poor sample size to pull from.
You also have zero evidence that Flores is better. I hope he is good, but we have no actual play time to show it. I hope Rangel, Flores, and Smith are all bona fide studs, but we don’t know yet BECAUSE–as you yourself keep harping–we returned a bunch of starters from a pretty successful team. You’d have to have a very compelling reason not to start your starting QB. He didn’t wait until we went 0-4. He gave Rangel a shot against Utah. If Rangel had done more with his shot, we’d likely have made the change. Flores, as we know now, was hurt. Smith likely wasn’t ready. We were out of options, and if you remember, the media and people un this very group ripped Gundy for throwing Rangel in. Bowman had that heroic comeback attempt and they said Bowman was the better option.
So, no, the fans don’t know better. They’re full of crap and criticize decisions in hindsight for which they have little information. Gundy didn’t get this team anywhere near its potential this year, but we don’t know that any decision he made would’ve been made better by any loser in his mom’s basement. Pay your bills, bill.
That’s typically what happens when you refuse to give time to the other QB to play. Rangel got the least time of all our quarterbacks last season.
It’s tough to prove it even further when your coaching staff doesn’t allow you to stay on the field.
It’s tough to have evidence when the coaches refuse to put him out on the field.
Remember what Gundy said “it takes 15 games for them to get it”.
How many more QB miscues would you like Gundy to have before you admit they do?
Gundy is afraid to make decisions. He’s been that way his entire career. So that alone tells me you have no idea what the hell you’re actually talking about. I do pay my bills on time. Now make Gundy actually work for what he’s getting paid .
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AKasey Dunn and Gundy lost this game.
Dunn for calling an onside kick. Gundy for not playing Smith earlier.
Our receivers were sensational. Stribling is not returning. Gordon is gone. Smith needs to drink Ensure for calories, or else eat more chicken fried steak.
So many costly mistakes gave the Win to TT. And what a horrible defense we have.
TT defense is so bad, they made our offensive line look good.
Most of all, you knew something was wrong with this season when we saw almost no comments from Robert. I knew that was a bad omen. Did he graduate high school and get a job that keeps him too busy to post in his broken English?
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I’m not going to speak on how talented our backups were, but Bowman was not the man for the job. He’s one of the most inaccurate QBs I’ve seen in a while. It shouldn’t take injuries and half the season for that to be realized.
Hey champ,
Rangel got the least time is goofy. They were getting the same number of series. If it worked out that he had less time then either his drives were less successful and they were shorter or maybe he just drew the short straw and got a handful of fewer reps due to circumstance. It wasn’t any significant difference. He had opportunity to win the job. He didn’t, and since you all insist experience isn’t an advantage, then he wasn’t actually better.
When was Flores supposed to play? He’s been injured basically all season. He was way down the depth chart last year.
I don’t get this “shouldn’t take half the season” narrative. He benched Bowman against Utah. I get that it was a tough spot for Rangel to come into, but he looked bad (Weeden came into a similar situation and took the game over, but not everyone can be the best QB in school history). Then Bowman came back in and made a valiant attempt at a comeback. You want Gundy to listen to the fans? They and the media were hammering him for pulling Bowman.
Rangel looked bad in comparison to Bowman both last season and in the comeback attempt at Utah. Flores got injured. Smith went through the offseason as QB4 and there’s no way he was up to speed. Who is left? Go wild cat?
He knew he needed to make a change. He tried Rangel again and he got injured. We still don’t know if Rangel is any good, and I think it was a desperation move starting him just opting for anyone who isn’t Bowman. I think they were working to get Smith ready and when they felt comfortable not throwing him to the wolves, he played. There wasn’t much of a choice. Throwing an unprepared true freshman out would be a crap move.