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Following an entertaining win over Oregon State to start the season, Oklahoma State welcomes FCS squad McNeese to Boone Pickens Stadium on Saturday.
The game (7 p.m. ET start time) won’t be on regular national TV anywhere, but you can watch it live right here on ESPN+, the digital streaming service from ESPN that has exclusive coverage of dozens of college football games and other live sports every week, all the 30-for-30 documentaries and additional original content (both video and written) all for $4.99 per month.
You can sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch Oklahoma State vs McNeese live on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
McNeese vs Oklahoma State Preview
Offensively, Oklahoma State looked about as good as could be imagined during their 52-38 win against Oregon State last weekend.
Redshirt freshman quarterback Spencer Sanders completed 19-of-24 passes for 203 yards and three touchdowns and added 109 yards on 13 carries, while sophomore running back Chuba Hubbard sliced through the Beaver defense on his way to 221 yards and three touchdowns.
“In most cases, you won’t have that because if you’re balanced, you are going to get more yards per catch which is in the throwing game,” Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy said about his team’s offensive balance. “I don’t have any problem rushing for 250 yards and throwing for 250 yards. If you can get anywhere near rushing for 250 yards a game, then you are a good running football team. The 250 mark is a good mark for us rushing the ball. To start the year with who we are as a team, it was about as good as I could ever want.”
However, Oklahoma State will need to improve on the other side of the ball.
The Beavers, who were picked to finish last in the Pac-12 North, piled up 448 yards of total offense. The Cowboys struggled especially on third downs, allowing Oregon State to convert on 13 of 20.
“We couldn’t get off the field on third downs,” Gundy said. “We had 88 plays on defense, if we could have gotten off the field on 50% of those third downs, we could have been in the low 70s and probably held them to 25 points or less. Those are things that we need to work on this week as we move forward. We need to get better every day and every week on our schemes in all three facets as we move forward.”
McNeese, who went 6-5 last year, held off a late comeback attempt against Southern last weekend to secure the 34-28 win. They were actually out-gained overall, but McNeese’s five forced turnovers (all fumbles) proved to be the difference.
“They won last week by a touchdown,” Gundy said. “They’re based on defense up to this point. They want to get lined up, play hard and run to the ball is what it looks like. They are trying to be balanced on offense. We will get a game plan in for them in all three phases of the game.”
Oklahoma State should have little trouble getting the win in this one, as they’re favored at home by 39.5 points. Nevertheless, this offers them a pressure-free game to try to clean up some things from last week.
“We need to get better at what we do,” said Gundy. “That will make me feel a lot better if we can continue to improve in the basic fundamentals and the discipline of us being a smart football team, that would do a lot for me this Saturday.”