Oklahoma State has been ahead of Texas Tech for quite some time, but the tides have turned.
OSU has seen the most successful stretch of football in school history over the past two decades with Mike Gundy at the helm. In his 20 full seasons as head coach, the Cowboys made 18 bowl appearances and had 18 winning seasons.
Of course, that stretch of greatness came to an end last season when OSU went 3-9, and the door on that era was closed and locked when the Cowboys fired Gundy just three games into this season following a loss to Tulsa. While there are many things that went right for the Pokes in that era, their matchups against Texas Tech were almost always a fun chapter of the season.
While the all-time series between OSU and Texas Tech dates back to 1935 and features an even 24-24-3 split across the 51 matchups, the Cowboys were on a roll against the Red Raiders for most of the past 20 years.
In Gundy’s 20 seasons as head coach, OSU and Texas Tech matched up 19 times, featuring a 14-5 mark for the Cowboys. While last season’s matchup was a blemish to finish Gundy’s OSU career against the Red Raiders, his dominance in the matchup is hard to understate.
From 2009-17, OSU won nine straight battles against the Red Raiders, highlighted by the iconic 66-6 win in Lubbock in the Cowboys’ historic 2011 campaign. It’s been 14 years since that game, and the Cowboys are set to travel to Lubbock on Saturday as a nearly 40-point underdog. While there is a legitimate possibility for another 66-6 final score, the likely winner is a great indicator of how much each program has changed in recent years.
While the Cowboys are staring down a 1-11 season and the Red Raiders are potentially on their way to a College Football Playoff appearance, the state of this matchup hasn’t been like this for long at all. Although Texas Tech looks poised to hit the 10-win mark this season and become a threat in the Big 12 for years to come, its most recent 10-win campaign was 2008, and it has never made the Big 12 title game. Meanwhile, OSU accomplished both of those feats just two seasons ago.
All of the evidence points to there being a sleeping giant in Stillwater that just began its slumber, but there’s a real case to be made that another giant was just woken up in Lubbock and could be a thorn in the Cowboys’ side for the foreseeable future.