Offensive Players to Watch: Oklahoma State @ Iowa State

Hello everyone, and happy Big 12 opening weekend! Today, we’ll be taking a closer look at some of the quarterbacks competing in this week’s games.

Iowa State: Rocco Becht

Coming into this season, Iowa State had not yet decided on a clear-cut starter at quarterback with Matt Campbell deciding to put Rocco Becht or JJ Kohl on the first depth-chart. With JJ’s playing time being minimal in the UNI game, Rocco seems to be our starter moving into his first full season of conference play. Last year, Rocco got a small glimpse of the Big 12 while coming in late during the TCU game and will try to make it a more successful go at an Oklahoma State team that is also looking like a bottom-feeder in the conference.

He has already shown signs of potential going 50-for-81 (61.7%), 549 passing yards and a 4 touchdown to 3 interception ratio. Something that shouldn’t be overlooked is the fans learned from the ESPNU sideline reporter right before the Ohio kickoff that some of our players had food poisoning, including Rocco. Despite this, he looked good throwing 17-for-24, 233 passing yards, and a singular touchdown and throwing two interceptions while spreading the ball around not having a major preference for his targets in an offense that really has struggled this year under first-year OC Nate Scheelhaase.

It will be interesting to see what the underperforming Iowa State offense can come up with against a struggling defense that has allowed 354.3 yards per game.

Oklahoma State: The Quarterbacks

Going into this season, Oklahoma State also had a giant question mark on who would be slinging the ball for them having Alan Bowman, Gunnar Gundy, and Garret Rangel all listed with “or” in between their names. It’s a possibility we may see multiple passers in this game for the Cowboys seeing how much they have struggled to find a standout in their first three games.

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Alan Bowman

Alan Bowman had a successful career (yet prone to injuries) at Texas Tech from 2018-2020 going 478-for-713 (67%), 5,260 passing yards, and 35 touchdowns to 17 interceptions before transferring to Michigan for two seasons while attempting 11 passes before deciding to transfer again to Oklahoma State. Currently, Alan has gone 30-for-52 (57.7%), 235 passing yards, but has zero touchdowns and one interception.

Even though Alan has the most experience, Iowa State’s defense has kept him in check with a record of 0-2 while going 45-for-78 (57.7%), 420 passing yards, and one touchdown to three interceptions. In a game where critical turnovers could be the deciding factor, do not be surprised if Coach Gundy pulls Alan if he starts to show the same tendencies.

Gunnar Gundy

Son of Oklahoma State’s Head Coach Mike “I’m a man” Gundy, Gunnar played sporadically during his redshirt freshman season. In the first three games of this season, Gunnar has put together some decent stats going 21-for-34 (61.8%), 202 passing yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions. With the current play-calling breakdown being close to evenly split between all three, it will be more of when we will see Gunnar over if.

Garret Rangel

Garret is the odd man out in the three-quarterback system that sees the Cowboys 2-1 so far this season with the lowest amount of attempts. Garret is 17-for-29(58.6%), 172 passing yards, two touchdowns and one interception. He has found the endzone the most of all the Cowboys’ passers, but he has yet to emerge from the shadows of Alan and Gunnar to take the reigns.