Cowboys keep Mississippi State scoreless for three quarters
The mention of great defense before offense seemed out of place for Oklahoma State.
A crowd of 35,000 watched Oklahoma State’s defense hold Mississippi State to three points and J. W. Walsh and Jeremy Smith combine for 352 yards and three touchdowns while helping the Cowboys roll to a 21-3 victory in the 2013 Advocare Texas Kickoff on Saturday evening at Reliant Stadium.
The win gave the 13th ranked Cowboys (1-0) much to be happy about as its defense stood tall for practically four quarters.
A bend-but-not-break defense led the way for the Cowboys. After surrendering a field goal to begin the game, Oklahoma State didn’t yield another point.
“We weren’t very good really in the first two series,” Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy explained. “They went right down the field on us. We allowed them to convert third and what I call extra long.”
Not since 1995 have the Cowboys held a BCS conference opponent to three or fewer points. The last was rival Oklahoma University, 12-0.
Executing offense was far from midseason form. But it hardly mattered to the Cowboys, whose ball hawking defense threw a monkey wrench into Mississippi State’s game plan.
It wasn’t until late in the second quarter when quarterback J.W. Walsh, who was 18-27-0 with 135 yards through the air and added 125 ground yards on 13 carries, entered the game in place of starter Clint Chelf at the end of the first quarter, engineering a six-play, 69-yard scoring drive to give Oklahoma State a 7-3 lead.
It was his two huge runs, that set up the touchdown; a 46-yard run coupled with an 11-yarder, took the ball inside the 4-yard line. Two plays later, Walsh raced in from 3-yards out to give the Cowboys their first lead of the game, 7-3, with 2:16 left in the second quarter.
“Once we started rolling and getting our drives going and hitting our tempo stuff, we saw them kind of grind down a little bit,” Oklahoma State quarterback J. W. Walsh added.
Walsh’s rushing was the first 100-yard effort since Zac Robinson’s 144 against Baylor in 2007.
“To see our run game be so successful is nice to see early on in the season, especially against a big physical defense like that,” Walsh said.
Running back Smith added 102 rushing yards on 15 carries. The fleet-footed Smith used his small size to hide behind a huge offensive line.
Mississippi State’s first drive resulted in a 40-yard field goal from Devon Bell. Despite the offense’s early success, they fizzled out quickly and never made enough plays to sustain any drives. Most of that had to do with the Cowboys’ defense.
“I think we did a great job early in the game,” says Bulldogs Coach Dan Mullens. “We were up and down the field, we just didn’t capitalize on things, and we started making mistakes.”
Oklahoma State opened the third and fourth quarters with scoring drives to cushion its lead. The Cowboys marched 75-yards in 11-plays, eating up 4:19 of clock, to take an 11-point lead. Walsh directed the drive with a mixture of passes and run plays.
A late hit sparked the drive when Walsh took a hit as he went out of bounds during an 11-yard pick up. The penalty yards gave the Cowboys a first down at the Bulldogs 19. Three plays later, Smith turned in a 1-yard TD run.
The Bulldogs’ (0-1) only two possessions of the quarter were three outs which had much to do with Oklahoma’s defense.
The Cowboys capped the scoring with an 82-yard drive that began near the end of the third quarter and ended in the first 27 seconds of the fourth.
A late effort to cut the lead, failed when Bell hooked a field goal attempt wide left. Following, Cowboys’ safety Zach Craig’s interception with 1:51 left, all but ended the Bulldog’s night.
