Oklahoma State's Loss to Oregon Paints Grim Long-Term Picture

Saturday was a disaster, and the rest of the season might not look much better.

Oklahoma State is coming off one of the worst performances in program history, falling to Oregon 69-3 in the Week 2 matchup. Losing by 66 points, this game marked easily the largest margin of defeat in the Mike Gundy era, eclipsing the 52-point loss at Colorado to finish 2024. 

That loss against Colorado last season signaled the end of an era. While Gundy was set to stick around after some scares about his job security, just about everyone else around him on the coaching staff was let go.

Bringing in Todd Grantham and Doug Meacham as coordinators and securing the largest portal class in OSU history, everything about the 2025 season was set to look different than 2024. And, frankly, things have looked different in 2025.

The Cowboys beat a worse FCS opponent than they faced in 2024 by a smaller margin and suffered a loss on Saturday that was far worse than even its most pathetic performance from a season ago. Although so much has changed on paper, the Cowboys haven’t made any improvements if the matchup against Oregon is any indication of what’s to come.

Sure, losing to Oregon was expected. Losing big to Oregon was expected, given that OSU was a four-touchdown underdog. However, there was also an expectation for OSU to give an effort and to simply play a remotely competitive game for a half.

Instead, OSU was down two possessions less than two minutes into the game, and somehow, things only got worse from there. Although OSU got on the board in the second quarter with a field goal and prevented a shutout, there’s a legitimate argument that this was the worst loss the program has ever suffered.

The OSU media guide might still show that a 75-0 loss in 1904’s Bedlam matchup was the worst, but it’s hard to argue that game was worse than Oregon given the context. OSU has already been to the top tier of college football under Gundy and was even in the Big 12 Championship Game 21 months ago.

The program has fallen off a cliff in the blink of an eye, and even if this ends up as Gundy’s final season and everything in Stillwater changes again this offseason, there might simply be more of the same to come for the next several years.