It’s been 79 years since No. 12 Utah and No. 14 Oklahoma State have played a game of football.
Suffice it to say the sport’s changed a little since the school then known as Oklahoma A&M handed the Utes a 46-6 beatdown in Salt Lake City on Oct. 20, 1945.
When the programs convene again on Saturday in Stillwater, Okla., to open Big 12 Conference play, they’ll play a September game that could have December ramifications. Both Utah and Oklahoma State are 3-0 and expected to contend for the conference title. A win could give someone a leg up on reaching the new 12-team playoff, and a loss might keep someone out of the playoff.
“They’re all big, right? In college football now, every game matters,” said Cowboys coach Mike Gundy.
One reason this one matters more than most is the quarterback matchup. The Utes’ Cam Rising and Oklahoma State’s Alan Bowman are 25 and 24 years old, respectively. Their combined age is 49, or five years older than the combined ages of 22-year-olds Anthony Richardson and Caleb Williams, who will start in Sunday’s NFL matchup between the Colts and Bears.
It could be said that 25 is the new 20 in college football. Rising sat out Utah’s 38-21 win last week at Utah State but is aiming to return this week. He suffered a finger injury in the third quarter of a victory two weeks ago against Baylor.
“That’s all you ever dreamed of as a kid is just playing in big-time football games and this is a great Oklahoma State team,” Rising said. “So just chomping at the bit to get out there and get this thing going fine.”
In just over six quarters of action, Rising is 18 of 29 for 346 yards and seven touchdowns. Micah Bernard paces the ground game with 274 yards on 41 carries, while four receivers have already surpassed 100 yards of catches.
Bowman has put up some huge numbers in his team’s wins over South Dakota State, Arkansas and Tulsa. He drowned the Golden Hurricane last week for 396 yards and five touchdowns, matching a career high, during an easy 45-10 win.
In three games, Bowman has completed 67 percent of his passes for 967 yards, eight touchdowns and just two interceptions. De’Zhaun Stribling has been his favorite target, catching 17 balls for 295 yards and two scores.
The Cowboys haven’t gotten Ollie Gordon II, who ran for 1,732 yards in 14 games last year, going on the ground yet. He has only 216 yards and is averaging just 3.5 yards per carry in three games. Tulsa limited him to 41 yards on 17 carries last week, but Gundy isn’t too concerned.
“We ran the ball well Saturday when we had an equal number or half-man disadvantage,” he said. “We didn’t run the ball well when they had one or two extra people there. I could show you five or six plays real quick where we had really successful plays because Ollie went this way and eight guys chased him that way.”
