STILLWATER — Mike Gundy’s Cowboys are 1-0, and they beat a team that hasn’t lost in nearly two years to get there.

Oklahoma State beat South Dakota State 44-20 on Saturday in Boone Pickens Stadium. Here are five things OSU’s coach said after the game. A video of his full news conference is below.

1. On the Bow Show

Alan Bowman was perhaps as good as he has been in an OSU uniform on Saturday.

OSU’s quarterback threw for 267 yards, three scores and no interceptions while completing 74% of his passes. He didn’t complete more than 70% of his passes in any game last season.

Gundy was pleased with Bowman’s ability to spread the ball to the Cowboys’ various weapons — guys such as Ollie Gordon, Brennan Presley, De’Zhaun Stribling and Rashod Owens.

“Alan, I think, was good from a mental standpoint from what I heard on the headphones,” Gundy said. “Made decisions in what we asked him to do, and his grade in that area, I think, will be really high. That’s where he can help himself and help our team — if he can get the ball distributed to the people that we have because most of what we do is run-pass options.”

2. Colorado-North Dakota State Score Raised Gundy’s Anxiety

This is actually the second time this week a Dakota school faced a Big 12 school — the other instance was much closer.

Colorado beat North Dakota State 31-26 in a game that went down to the final play. Gundy said he didn’t watch that game, as Gunnar Gundy and the Emporia State Hornets opened their season at the same time. (Gunnar led the Hornets to a 30-14 victory.) But Gundy said when he saw the score, it was a little anxiety-educing considering South Dakota State beat North Dakota State 33-16 last season

“My anxiety went up when I saw that score,” Gundy said. “I can’t remember — I was afraid to look it up — but I think this team beat (NDSU) by three or four touchdowns last year (17 points). I’m not sure. And I’m not taking anything away from North Dakota State. They do a great job. But when somebody sent me the final score, my anxiety went up a little, I will have to admit.”

3. ‘Average’ Running the Ball

OSU ran for 3.3 yards a carry Saturday, but Gundy said he wants about a yard more.

Gordon eclipsed 100 yards against a Jackrabbit team that gave up just 89.6 yards a game last season. Still, the Cowboys didn’t exactly gash South Dakota State on the ground. Gordon had four rushes of 10 or more yards but none longer than 12 yards.

“I thought we were average running the ball today,” Gundy said. “Now, they play good defense. They always have, and they understand principals of inside leverage. Ya know, ‘I’m gonna take the run away. I’m not gonna let this guy block me, and then I’m gonna rally late and defend the pass.’ They’re really good at it. That’s why hardly anybody scores on them in their games. I didn’t think we ran the football as well as we should’ve, in my opinion. …

“We ran the ball OK today, but that’s not good enough.”

4. QR Codes

Who would have thought that a little sticker would cause such a stir.

OSU announced earlier this month that the Cowboys would wear a QR code on the backs of their helmets that links to the team’s general NIL fund. Shortly before kickoff, a release was passed around the press box announcing that the NCAA was blocking OSU from slapping the stickers on its helmers based on a rule.

When news first came out about the QR codes, everyone seemingly had an opinion about it. Then when they were banned, it kicked up the storm all over again.

Gundy said word got to him Tuesday or Wednesday.

“They called me and said the NCAA had met and said it was a uniform violation and that it was punishable by the players being suspended if we put the QR codes on the helmets,” Gundy said. “Now, I read the rule, I think it’s judgmental based on if it ever went to a court of law. It’s pretty vague. All we’re trying to do is the most we can do to maximize our players’ opportunities with fans across the world that don’t have a chance to be involved if they’re not local. …

“They said it was a uniform violation. I don’t agree with that, but what I didn’t want to do is take a chance on them trying to drop the hammer on a player because that wouldn’t be fair to the player. Now, if it was me — if they were gonna drop the hammer on me — I don’t care. I would’ve wore it. But I don’t want a player to get penalized for something like that, so I just said it’s not worth it. I don’t know what authority they have anymore, but I don’t want to take a chance on them trying to penalize a player for something that we could avoid.”

5. Depth

The Cowboys didn’t clear the benches Saturday. Bowman played the entire game, and fans kept asking on social media why Gordon was in during the fourth quarter. Still, the Cowboys were able to use quite a few guys just naturally against a good team.

OSU’s participation chart shows that 62 players saw game action against the Jackrabbits, something Gundy said is a good thing on a few fronts.

“I think that’s important,” Gundy said. “We talked about it all through the offseason that we have a number of players on both sides of the ball that have some sort of experience that can get in and play. And in my opinion, the area you really improve in is when you get in the game and play. Practice is great, but it’s not the same. The more reps we can get players in, it does two things. One, it shows us who they are. And two, it gives us a chance to evaluate them and keep the other guys fresh. So I was pleased with the number of players we were able to get in.”

STILLWATER — The Oklahoma State football team beat South Dakota State 44-20 on Saturday to start the season 1-0. After the game, Mike Gundy, Ollie Gordon, Alan Bowman, De’Zhaun Stribling, Collin Oliver, Korie Black and Trey Rucker met with reporters to recap the game.

The South Dakota State Jackrabbits face the No. 17 Oklahoma State Cowboys on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024 (8/31/24) at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Fans can watch the game with a subscription to ESPN+.

Here’s what you need to know:

What: NCAA Football, Week 1

Who: South Dakota State vs. Oklahoma State

When: Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024 (8/31/24)

Where: Boone Pickens Stadium

Time: 2 p.m. ET

TV: N/A

Channel finder: Verizon Fios, AT&T U-verse, Comcast Xfinity, Spectrum/Charter, Optimum/Altice,Cox,DIRECTV, Dish, Hulu, fuboTV, Sling.

Live stream: ESPN+

***

Here’s a college football story from the Associated Press:

Y’all ain’t played nobody!

It might as well be college football’s slogan. Debates about strength of schedule are part of the fabric of the sport, like marching bands, cheerleaders and tailgating.

With the size of the College Football Playoff tripling in size from four teams to 12 this season — including seven at-large bids — expect the arguments over the relative difficulty of teams’ schedules to increase exponentially.

The posturing and politicking has already begun.

“This is the NFL of college football in my mind,” Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said during Big Ten media days. At Southeastern Conference media days, the NFL was also invoked when the topic steered to schedules.

“As coaches we want to play the best. People forget that when you’ve spent time in the NFL, every week was like that,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “So when Texas and Oklahoma came into the conference, every schedule was going to get harder.”

The debates aren’t just about which conferences are the best. With super-sized conferences of 16-18 teams, the differences in strength of schedule within leagues can be significant.

The CFP selection committee uses a strength-of-schedule rating provided by SportSource Analytics that includes components such as wins and losses, scoring differential and game location.

Balancing who you played with how you played will be harder than ever.

“There’s a weight on the committee that’s new. I want to see how the committee processes that,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said during spring meetings. “And my encouragement is that this, ‘Well, we have an undefeated team so they’re in’ is not the standard. It never was the standard. Obviously, that stirred up controversy last year.”

Toughest schedules in the Power Four

There are dozens of data-based rating systems to measure the relative strength of college football teams, and all have some type of schedule-rating component.

The AP took three systems — ESPN’s SP+, FEI and KFord Ratings — and averaged their strength of schedule rankings for all 134 Bowl Subdivision teams to determine where each Power Four team’s schedule ranks nationally (all games, not just conference games, are factored in).

Using those projections, SEC teams on average will be facing the toughest schedules this season.

The average strength-of-schedule ranking among the 16 SEC teams is 11.2, from Florida (a unanimous No. 1 among all three systems) to Missouri at 36.7.

Half the teams in the SEC have schedules with an average national ranking of 10 or better, including No. 1 Georgia at 3.7. No. 11 Missouri is the only SEC team with an average schedule-strength ranking below 25.3.

Rating the rest

The Big Ten, now including Southern California, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, is next with an average strength-of-schedule ranking of 26.9 among its 18 teams.

Purdue’s 7.7 average ranking is the highest followed by No. 23 USC at 9. Big Ten favorite No. 2 Ohio State’s average is 34. No. 3 Oregon’s is 26.7.

The ACC and Big 12 are about the same. The 17-team ACC has an average strength of schedule ranking of 49.9. The 16-team Big 12′s average ranking is 47.3.

Assessing strength of schedule

Straight up rankings can be deceiving. How to quantify the difference between facing the sixth-ranked schedule and 26th?

Brian Fremeau, the creator of FEI, does it three ways, asking three questions: How many games would an elite team lose facing a particular schedule? How many would a good team lose? How many would an average team lose?

AP used FEI’s strength of schedule ratings based on good teams in its composite rankings, since good teams are going to be the ones in the CFP race.

Based on FEI projections, the difference between playing Georgia’s schedule (rated 3.4 among the hardest in the nation) and Ohio State (34) is about one more loss for a good team against the Bulldogs’ slate. The difference between Alabama’s schedule and Big 12 favorite Utah’s is about two losses for a good team against the Tide’s.

If these schedule strength projections held — they will change throughout the season — it would then be reasonable to compare an 11-1 Utah to a 9-3 Alabama.

Reasonable to compare doesn’t necessarily mean the one with the tougher schedule should automatically be ranked higher.

“I don’t judge a team on its schedule. I judge a team on how it performs against a schedule, or my system does. And that is a little more of a nuanced take then, ‘Well, we played a tougher set of opponents than you did, therefore, we’re better,’” Fremeau said. “There’s a bit of a balancing act between the two.”

Intraconference debates

The SEC and Big Ten are both bigger and division-less for the first time. That necessitated new tiebreaker procedures to determine which teams qualify for conference title games featuring the top two teams in the standings.

Within the guidelines is an acknowledgment that the rigor of conference schedules will vary when teams are playing barely half the league. After head-to-head and record vs. common opponents are used to break ties, both leagues go to results that favor the team that fared better against the better conference opponents they play.

The ACC, a year ahead of the the SEC and Big Ten in abandoning divisions, has a similar nod within its tiebreakers to strength of schedule.

ACC Associate Commissioner Michael Strickland said the conference used 10 years of data that measures the success of its football teams to help create a new schedule rotation that would be competitively balanced. But the ACC also to had weigh travel now that Stanford, California and SMU are members, as well as protecting some traditional annual rivalries.

The ACC’s fourth two-team tiebreaker is combined winning percentage of conference opponents.

“Our head football coaches suggested that we insert that during our review process,” Strickland said.

The CFP choices

The CFP field announced Dec. 8 will be comprised of the five highest-ranked conference champions, regardless of league, and seven at-large selections. There is no limit to the number of at-large bids a conference can receive.

The most interesting comparisons for the CFP selection committee might end up being between the many conference rivals that do not play each other in the regular season.

What to do with a 10-2 Missouri and a 9-3 Alabama (composite strength-of-schedule ranking, 9.3)? Or Iowa (37) at 10-2 and Michigan (16) at 9-3? Over in the ACC, what would happen while assessing a 10-2 Virginia Tech (68) and a 9-3 Florida State (30.3)?

“Especially when we’re picking (seven) teams now, we’re looking at the loss column with a bit more scrutiny,” Fremeau said. “They’re going to be debating teams like that with a one or possibly two-game difference in record, but a comparable difference in expected schedule rating and they’re going to have that debate about which one they value more.”

(The Associated Press contributed to this report)

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