Oklahoma State walked out of Manhattan with exactly the kind of response it needed.
After last week’s letdown at Iowa State, the Cowboys turned Kansas State into the backdrop for a runaway, piling up points in a 66-28 win that was over fast and stayed ugly for the Wildcats. OSU scored 49 points in the first half alone, the most any Cowboy team has put up in one half since a 49-point burst at Texas Tech in 2011.
Caleb Hawkins was the engine behind it all.
The Cowboy tailback finished with 246 total yards and four touchdowns, delivering a huge day as both a runner and receiver. Hawkins rushed for 175 yards and three scores on 20 carries, then added 71 receiving yards and another touchdown on six catches. Most of the damage came before halftime, when he had 159 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns on just 17 carries.
He looked like a back playing with a point to prove.
That showed up on his first touchdown, a 21-yard run where he lunged for the goal line and initially was ruled short. After review, Hawkins was credited with the score because he kept his body off the ground and used the defender tackling him to avoid putting down a knee or elbow.
Drew Mestemaker was just about as sharp.
The quarterback went 22 of 28 for 313 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. The pick was returned for a K-State touchdown, but it came when the Wildcats were already buried and trying to find some kind of answer. Even with that blemish, Mestemaker turned in a huge performance and kept the offense humming.
He also made program history, becoming the first Cowboy to throw for 300 yards in eight straight games.
Mestemaker didn’t miss for a while, either. He didn’t throw his first incompletion until nearly five minutes into the second quarter and finished with almost 80% completions. His quarterback rating checked in at 212.5.
Oklahoma State’s defense had its rough spot in the secondary, but it also came up with enough big plays to tilt the game even further.
Kansas State’s first touchdown came on a 73-yard pass to a receiver who slipped behind the coverage and raced in untouched. But the Cowboys answered that lapse with three interceptions, including two from LaDainian Fields and one from Quinton Hammonds.
Fields now leads the country with seven interceptions this season, with six coming over the last four games. His seven picks through the first nine games are the most by a Cowboy since Darrent Williams in 2003.
The pressure up front wasn’t overwhelming on the stat sheet, but it still made life miserable for K-State quarterback Blake Barnett, who made his first career start Saturday and was replaced by Dillon Duff after halftime. Oklahoma State was credited with one sack, seven quarterback hurries and three tackles for loss, and it spent plenty of time in the backfield anyway.
One early second-quarter sequence showed that clearly. The Cowboys sent a safety blitz off the edge, and even though Evan Jackson didn’t get the sack, he blew up the timing enough to kill the play and force a dead-end run.
There was also a little style points mixed in late.
Up 56-21, OSU dialed up a trick play in the third quarter that ended with Mestemaker catching a touchdown pass for the first receiving score of his career. Terrence Lewis took the handoff, ran left and pitched to Wyatt Young going the other way. Young then floated the ball to a wide-open Mestemaker.
It was a slick play. It also came at a moment when the Cowboys already had the game locked down, which made it feel a little extra.
There was another matchup worth watching, too: cousins LaDainian Fields and Rodney Fields meeting as opponents for the first time. They had only been teammates before Saturday, and both had their moments. LaDainian finished with two interceptions, three tackles and one quarterback hurry, while Rodney ran for 87 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries.
They even collided a couple of times, including late in the first quarter when LaDainian tracked Rodney down on the sideline for an 8-yard gain, then helped him up and gave him a quick pat on the back.
The crowd never had much chance to matter.
Eric Morris said he knows what Kansas State fans can be like in Manhattan, but this time the Cowboys took them out of the game early and kept them out. K-State won the coin toss and chose to receive rather than defer, which fired up the OSU sideline.
The Cowboys answered with a three-and-out, then the offense scored three plays later and the rout was on. By halftime, fans were heading for the exits in waves, and they kept leaving as the game wore on.
And the weather didn’t hurt either.
Clear skies, cool temperatures and a light breeze made for a perfect football afternoon, even if Kansas State didn’t have much of a team to match the setting.
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