Gundy, Cowboys reflect on rapid rise in volatility throughout Big 12

Nov. 23—Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy was asked about the Cowboys' regular-season finale against West Virginia at 11 a.m. Saturday in Boone Pickens Stadium during his weekly availability on Monday afternoon.

His response shed light on the matchup and how the Mountaineers are emblematic of the Big 12 Conference in 2022.

"They've played good at times. They're like everybody else in this league," Gundy said. "The other teams in this league have been vulnerable each week but then have shown signs of playing pretty good. Really, (the Mountaineers) fall in the same category."

That's the parity that has infiltrated the Big 12 this year, and that's why, with one week left in the regular season, the league is set to finish a lot differently than people anticipated.

West Virginia (4-7, 2-6 Big 12) is just one of the many examples this fall, losing to TCU by 10 points while nabbing a 43-40 win over Baylor two weeks prior. It's been a roller coaster of a season for the Mountaineers, who have earned bowl eligibility 19 times since the turn of the century.

With one game remaining on the schedule, West Virginia will miss a bowl for only the second time since 2013.

"There's times when you watch 'em on tape, they're playing as good as most teams in this league," Gundy said. "Then there's times, I'm sure, that Neal (Brown) wishes they would play better — like our team."

After an overtime loss to TCU in Week 6, Cowboys quarterback Spencer Sanders proclaimed that was only a preview of the Big 12 Championship. It seemed like that'd be the case, too, as the Pokes bounced back with a 41-34 win over Texas the following week.

And then injuries derailed the Cowboys, and they'll enter the Week 12 matchup with the Mountaineers having lost three of their four games since beating the Longhorns in the latter half of October.

Neither of the teams from last year's Big 12 title game — Baylor and OSU — will be returning to Arlington, Texas, this time around. That game is already set between TCU and Kansas State, both teams that finished with losing records in conference play a season ago.

"This is way different than last year. Like, the last four or five years, honestly," Cowboys defensive tackle Sione Asi said on Tuesday evening. "That's why the biggest thing is, like, always — and I had to learn this, too, myself — just the biggest thing is always respecting your opponents."

"We just had to come in and control what we can control," OSU wideout Braydon Johnson added. "Just go to work every day and play hard, because we knew a lot of teams were kind of balanced this year."

Gundy has an idea of why this happened throughout the Big 12 — throughout the country, really.

OSU's 18th-year coach has been adamant about what the transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness have done to football at this level. It will eventually become similar to the NFL, Gundy has said countless times.

And that's why, he said, people can't expect things to be the way they were even as recent as a couple of years ago. Recruiting has been taken to a whole new level. The massive uptick in transfers has, too.

"The portal and the NIL has thrown everybody in a bag, and you can just shake it up," Gundy said. "That's what's happened."

The lone exception in all of the Big 12's blemishes this season has been TCU, which is currently fourth in the College Football Playoff rankings heading into the final week of the regular season.

There's been skepticism surrounding the Horned Frogs and first-year coach Sonny Dykes, though. Whether it be because of the rapid turnaround from 2021 to 2022, some of the closer games they've played in and a list of reasons, people don't believe they're worthy of one of the four spots in the CFP.

Gundy does, though.

As someone whose team was essentially a win away from a playoff selection in 2021, Gundy is rooting for TCU to make it in. That was him a season ago, and now on the outside looking in, the league's — college football's — parity is more evident than ever.

"At the point they're at now, we should want them to try to be able to get in there. It elevates them, and it elevates everybody in the postseason," Gundy said. "We want each other to do good when we're not playing against each other."