Big 12 Week 9 Recap: Wheels Up, Horns Down

Week 9 Results

West Virginia Mountaineers 10 - (5) TCU Horned Frogs 40

Trevone Boykin once again had his way with an opposing team's defense, passing for 388 yards and three touchdowns as the #5 Horned Frogs dominated West Virginia Thursday night. The Mountaineers head coach, Dana Holgorson, even high-fived the TCU quarterback at one point during the game after an impressive run by the Heisman hopeful. If there is a more liked superstar in college football today, I've yet to find him.

Thankfully, the month of hell is over for West Virginia and its fans.

(12) Oklahoma State Cowboys 70 - Texas Tech Red Raiders 53

Oklahoma State's early schedule has been anything but impressive, allowing the Cowboys to open the season with an unblemished 7-0 record and #12 ranking in the AP polls. Texas Tech was to be the first true test for Gundy's squad, and the Red Raiders did everything they could in the first half to expose the Cowboys as posers, taking a 38-28 lead into the locker room.

A targeting call midway through the second quarter seemingly turned the tide against the home team, however, and the visiting Cowboys outscored Texas Tech 42-15 after the break.

(14) Oklahoma Sooners 62 - Kansas Jayhawks 7

I'm not positive if Kansas fans tore down their goalposts in celebration of the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series, or in protest of their football program after the Jayhawks were destroyed by the visiting Sooners.

Texas Longhorns 0 - Iowa State Cyclones 24

I admit, early on in the first quarter of the last week's game in Waco I tweeted this out to my 100 followers.

I am officially out. There is nothing to cheer for anymore. I tried, I hung on, but it is officially over for me.

— justin mccoy (@VegasCyclown) October 24, 2015

Followed shortly by changing my profile picture to a white flag. I had surrendered.

But I was wrong (mostly). The players (mostly) didn't give up on their team or their coach, and when a switch was made at quarterback, a new aurora shimmered and danced around this team. Players began making plays. Excitement began to build and over the last 35 minutes of that game, the team finally began to show signs of what they could be.

That moxie carried over into Saturday's homecoming game against a Texas Longhorn team that was riding a two game winning streak - including an uplifting upset of then #10 Oklahoma. To say the Cyclones were dominant is both true and misleading. The defense proved the doubters wrong by stifling the Longhorn's rushing attack, but new starting quarterback, Joel Lanning, was anything but perfect in his starting debut completing just 50 percent of his passes. However, he made the plays that needed to be made when they needed to be made, scrambling for first downs and hitting open receivers to keep the chains moving.

It's amazing what can happen when a player cares enough to try, and it is evident this team still believes enough in itself to win. I believe again, too.

Conference Standings

*AP Rank in parenthesis