Ollie Gordon reveals key to his big second half in bounce back win vs. Houston

Oklahoma State running back Ollie Gordon wasn’t finding much success in the first half Saturday against Houston. The Cowboys star refused to quit, however, turning in a big second-half performance to lead his team to a 43-30 win.

Gordon rushed for 126 of his 164 yards and all three of his touchdowns in the second half. His six-yard score to open the third quarter gave OSU the lead for good as the Cowboys opened with 17 unanswered points to pull away.

Speaking postgame with ESPN, Gordon explained that the Cougars stacked the box in the first half in effort to stop him. However, after the passing game opened things up with two second-quarter touchdowns from Alan Bowman, the running back saw more opportunity.

“Toward the second half, teams really can’t hang in there with us,” he said. “The second half, we just power up even more but other teams die down toward the end. At the beginning, they’re gonna game plan and stack the box. That’s why we have great receivers and a great quarterback. Our O-line and pass blocking was great tonight. Everything was great. Whenever they plan for that, we just open up fade balls to everybody. All our receivers.”

Houston jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter as Cowboys fans likely began to have flash backs from last week’s embarrassing 45-3 loss to UCF. Gordon rushed for just 25 yards against the Knights, and his struggles to begin Saturday’s game against Houston hinted toward another lopsided loss.

However, Bowman’s two touchdowns to close the first half made it a 23-19 deficit entering the locker room. Gordon then added two more in the third quarter in what was part of 27 unanswered beginning in the second.

The running back reach the 100-yard mark for the seventh time in the past eight games with his performance on Saturday. More than his individual effort, however, Ollie Gordon was happy to see Oklahoma State get the win after last week’s demoralizing effort.

“We just tried to tell ourselves we don’t really need to fall back on that L last week,” he said. “We look back and reflect, but we don’t hold anything to it. For us to come back and bounce back like this is great, but we’ve just gotta keep doing what we’re doing.”

With just one game remaining on the schedule, the Cowboys are tied for second in the Big 12 and have a chance to reach the conference title for the second time in three season. To do so, they’ll need to earn another win when they face BYU next week in Stillwater.