Oklahoma State Football: 3 takeaways from clutch win over Kansas State

Oklahoma State football was hoping to stay alive in the College Football Playoff race, but Kansas State gave the Cowboys all they could handle.

A week after dropping in dramatic fashion to Texas, Oklahoma State hit the road to take on a tough Kansas State team in year two of Chris Klieman.

No one likes traveling to Manhattan and it would be interesting to see if the Cowboys would continue to trend in the wrong direction or if they would be back in that playoff conversation with a big road win over Kansas State. They responded with a clutch 20-18 win against Kansas State.

Injuries plagued Oklahoma State all afternoon long as Tylan Wallace was out and both Chuba Hubbard and LD Brown suffered some injuries. But that wasn’t the decider as Oklahoma State’s defense made the difference.

What’d we learn from this Big 12 thriller?

3. Cowboys struggled to contain Will Howard’s legs

Oklahoma State’s defense has been one of the best in the Big 12 all season and after a tough loss to Texas last season, it was interesting to see how the Cowboys would bounce back.

How would Oklahoma State defend another mobile quarterback? Well it made life difficult for Howard through the air as the secondary did a solid job all evening but the front-seven had a tough time containing the speedy quarterback. He got out of the pocket on multiple occasions and gashed this Oklahoma State defense for big runs.

Deuce Vaughn and the Kansas State run game didn’t do much of anything, but Howard led the way with 125 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries but a fumble into the hands of Oklahoma State for the winning touchdown late was the difference. The defense was opportunistic, but it’s game plan against Howard’s legs was not great.

Oklahoma State needs to game plan better against mobile quarterbacks because it seems like that’s the main issue plaguing this otherwise stingy defense.