Bill Haisten: Seven years ago, scheduling Oregon seemed like a good idea

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Oklahoma State and Oregon, the OSU media relations office announced in 2018, have agreed to a home-and-home football series, with the Cowboys set to visit Autzen Stadium in Eugene on September 6, 2025, and the Ducks traveling to Stillwater on September 12, 2026.

Oklahoma State at No.

7 Oregon 2:30 p.m.

Saturday CBS, KOTV-1170 The two schools have squared off only once before, with Oregon a 42-31 winner in the 2008 Holiday Bowl.

Three years later, when the 2021 Cowboys were 12-2 and had one of the top five defenses in college football, the 2025 and 2026 Oregon games still felt like fun, splashy, valuable additions to future Cowboy schedules.

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Now, most of my OSU contacts seem to dread watching the Cowboys as four-touchdown underdogs.

Oklahoma State visits sixth-ranked Oregon on Saturday, and the Cowboy program takes heavy baggage to Autzen Stadium.

From midseason 2019 through midseason 2022, the Oklahoma State football records were 29-7 overall and 20-5 in the Big 12.

As it was known during the summer of 2021 that OU and Texas eventually would move to the SEC, it looked like the Cowboy program was positioned to possibly reign as the alpha program of a retooled Big 12.

There was a still-hard-to-believe 10-win season in 2023, but the momentum of 2019-22 is gone.

Since the midseason mark of the 2022 season, Oklahoma State is 16-19 overall and 9-16 in the Big 12.

OSUs 2024 disaster had a pronounced impact on those numbers.

Even more difficult to believe than the 10-4 of 2023 were last years records of 3-9 overall and 0-9 in the conference.

Last weeks Hauss Hejny foot injury seems to have chipped away about 90% of the OSU chance of an upset at Oregon.

Had Hejny been healthy, and if he had made plays this weekend like Texas A&Ms Johnny Manziel did in a 2012 road upset of then-No.

1 Alabama, OSU-Oregon might have been a great game.

It would be stupid to pretend to know that this weeks Cowboy QB, Zane Flores, is incapable of a magic performance.

We havent seen him play against a big-time defense.

Weve barely seen him play at all.

But Hejny was the starter for a reason, and Oregon is a 2812-point favorite for several reasons.

At the time that the OSU-Oregon arrangement was finalized, the Cowboy program was only a few months removed from what had been a streak of three consecutive 10-win seasons.

In 2015-17, with Mason Rudolph at quarterback, those Cowboys were 30-9.

The key words in that last sentence: with Mason Rudolph at quarterback.

The cornerstones of Mike Gundy-era success were quarterbacks Zac Robinson in 2007-09, Brandon Weeden in 2010-11 and Rudolph (who smashed all program records for passing yards, touchdown passes and total offense).

And now here we are in 2025, and were seven full seasons removed from the Rudolph years, and Oklahoma State still hasnt signed or brought in another NFL-level quarterback.

And now here we are on Wednesday afternoon, writing about this Saturdays Cowboy challenge at sixth-ranked Oregon and how the Cowboys are four-touchdown underdogs.

Matched with an Oregon team that as a first-year Big Ten member was the 2024 league champion, the Cowboys visit the Ducks Autzen Stadium for Saturdays 2:30 p.m., CBS-televised clash.

From a national-branding standpoint, the high points of the Gundy years were the Fiesta Bowl victories over Stanford and Notre Dame.

The 2011 Cowboys conquered Andrew Luck and the Stanford Cardinal in overtime, closing that Big 12 championship season with a 12-1 record.

The 2021 Cowboys rallied from a 21-point deficit to beat Notre Dame and record the second 12-win result in program history.

OSU wont get back to that Weeden-Rudolph level of winning until it gets a Weeden or Rudolph type of quarterback, and OSU wont be a consistent Big 12 contender until its offensive lines play like Weedens.

Those great 2006-12 lines were developed over time.

Two- and three-star recruits delivered four-star blocking.

In this era of revenue sharing and the portal, gradual athlete development has become obsolete.

From the 2022 midseason through the end of the 2024 season, the OSU quarterback totals were 62 touchdown passes against 50 interceptions.

You know what that will get you? A 16-19 record.

The Oklahoma State roster includes more than 60 first-year players.

The Cowboy upset bid hinges to a great extent on whether a backup quarterback Flores can be amazing in the starters role, and do it in one of the more hostile of all college football environments.

The truth is, Oregon very well may be the best team in college football.

While I do expect Oregon to win comfortably, I know better than to completely dismiss the possibility of an Oklahoma State miracle.

Why? Because I was on the sideline during the fourth quarter of the 2001 Bedlam game in Norman.

Since it was a factor in T.

Boone Pickens getting involved at such a remarkably generous level, and since it did so much for the spirit of the players and the fan base, the 2001 Bedlam game might have been the most important victory in OSU football history.

That day, the defending national champion OU Sooners were favored just as heavily as Oregon is this week.

Those Cowboys were 3-7.

Oklahoma State wound up winning 16-13 and did it with a freshman backup quarterback Josh Fields who played in spite of a broken left thumb.

Gundy was the Cowboy play-caller who drew up the Fields-to-Rashaun Woods connection for the game-winning TD.

A loss at Oregon wouldnt wreck the OSU season.

Gundy would have to preside over the recovery from disappointment, find a way to move the football until Hejny is reinstated, and start stacking wins until the Cowboys are bowl eligible for the 19th time in 20 years.

This weekend, though opportunity knocks for Zane Flores.

If he can pull a Johnny Manziel stunt and shock Oregon, his football life would change forever.

Someone should share the 2001 Bedlam video with Flores.

Oregon is really, really good, but the Ducks are not unbeatable..

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