AP Top 25 Illustrates Oklahoma State's Status in College Football

Oklahoma State won its season opener, but nothing else has gone well for the Cowboys this season.

On Friday night, OSU had arguably the worst loss of the Mike Gundy era, suffering a 19-12 defeat to Tulsa. That game marked the first time the Golden Hurricane had won the Turnpike Classic since 1998 and their first win in Stillwater since 1951.

With mounting pressure to make a head coaching change, and the Cowboys’ losing streak against FBS teams spanning over a year, things are looking darker in Stillwater than they have in over two decades. Unfortunately for the Cowboys, the signs of their demise this weekend didn’t end after Friday’s disaster.

On Sunday, the latest AP top 25 dropped, and the Cowboys unsurprisingly received zero votes. While that is sure to be the case in every poll this season, the Cowboys also saw how some of their former peers and rivals have simply left them behind in this new age of college football.

Looking back at the 2023 Bedlam contest that OSU won 27-24, it was easy to assume that the Cowboys would become the new face of the Big 12 as the Sooners began their new chapter in the SEC.

Instead, OSU has begun this 2025 season 1-2, while the Sooners have won their first four games and look like a real College Football Playoff contender, giving them the No. 7 spot in the AP poll. Heading into 2024, both programs were ready to start new chapters, with Oklahoma hoping the SEC would help its standing in the college football landscape, and OSU looking to seize control of the new-look Big 12. In case there was any doubt about how that was going, the Sooners have more wins against Big 12 teams than OSU in that span.

Of course, it’s not just the Sooners who have completely surpassed the Cowboys in a way that was unimaginable just a few years ago. Texas, which had plenty of problems against OSU in the 2010s, has also ascended past the Cowboys, reaching consecutive College Football Playoffs and earning the No. 10 spot in this week’s poll.

The disappointments aren’t confined to OSU’s former rivals that reside in the SEC, either. No. 12 Texas Tech, No. 14 Iowa State and No. 24 TCU were expected to be some of OSU’s top remaining rivals in the new Big 12, but even they have lapped the Cowboys considerably.

Add in No. 25 BYU, which won only five games in its first season in the Big 12 in 2023 as OSU made the Big 12 title game, and there is little to be optimistic about in Stillwater. Oh, and that double-overtime thriller against the Cougars that punched OSU’s ticket to Arlington that season still stands as the Cowboys’ most recent Big 12 win. 

At 666 days and counting since OSU’s last Big 12 win, even breaking that streak wouldn’t give Gundy and company the boost they’re looking for. The Cowboys are playing catch-up, and they might be stuck in that phase for the foreseeable future.