Arya News - Oregon beat Oklahoma State 69-3 a season ago.
A week after losing to Tulsa and a year after losing by more than 60 points to Oregon , the Cowboys shocked the No. 6 Ducks 39-31 on Saturday.
Oregon, a 24-point favorite, was somehow even sloppier than it was in its Week 1 win over Boise State . And the epitome of that adjective came just after the two-minute warning. As Oregon needed a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie the game, RB Dierre Hill simply dropped a toss from QB Dante Moore and Oklahoma State recovered.
Oregon had three timeouts after the fumble, but QB Drew Mestemaker kept the ball on a third-down read option to seal the game with a run for a first down.
"I don"t know if I can top this," OSU coach Eric Morris told ESPN after the game. "I"m not going to retire but I might think about it tonight."
Drew Mestemaker outperforms Dante Moore
Mestemaker showed why he"s a potential first-round pick in the 2027 NFL Draft in the win. He was 26-of-43 passing for 317 yards and two touchdowns while also rushing six times for 109 yards and a score. He broke a 75-yard run on the first play of the game and his leaping touchdown run in the fourth quarter put the Cowboys up for good.
Mestemaker transferred to Oklahoma State after the 2025 season when Morris left North Texas for Oklahoma State. Mestemaker, who famously didn"t start for his high school team and was a walk on for the Mean Green, threw for 4,379 yards and 34 touchdowns at North Texas in 2025.
His OSU career got off to a rough start, however. He was just 29-of-49 passing for 241 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions in the Cowboys" loss to Tulsa to open the season. The 24-10 defeat was Oklahoma State"s second straight loss to the Golden Hurricane. Last year"s loss led to the firing of longtime coach Mike Gundy.
This year, Week 1 made it look like Morris had a mountain to climb in Stillwater and that Mestemaker, RB Caleb Hawkins , WR Wyatt Young and the other former North Texas players who followed him to OSU were in for a rough transition to the Big 12. Especially given the way that Oregon demolished the Cowboys in 2025.
Oregon beat Oklahoma State 69-3 a season ago as it rolled up 631 total yards and forced two Oklahoma State turnovers. That loss came less than a week before the defeat to Tulsa as OSU finished the season 1-11 and didn"t beat a team at the top level of college football all season long.
Oregon has a lot of things to correct
Moore has been seen as the top quarterback in the 2027 NFL Draft class after his decision to return for another season with the Ducks . After throwing for three touchdowns in Oregon"s Week 1 win over Boise State, he got off to a rough start on Saturday. At one point, Moore was 3-of-11 passing for 17 yards as Oregon"s receivers also didn"t give him much help.
Moore finished the game 14-of-29 passing for 191 yards and two scores. Oregon mustered just 281 total yards of offense to Oklahoma State"s 554, and the Cowboys had 25 first downs to Oregon"s 12.
The stats don"t simply tell the story of how poorly Oregon played, however. Before the fourth-quarter fumble, Oregon"s previous two drives were inexcusable. After Mestemaker"s TD, the Ducks somehow committed two delay-of-game penalties in four plays before punting the ball. The first came after the kickoff and before first down. The second came as the team lined up to punt.
After getting the ball back with 7:22 to go and trailing by five, Oregon gained just two yards on its first three plays of the drive. Rather than punting the ball back to Oklahoma State, Oregon coach Dan Lanning elected to go for it on fourth down from his own 33 yard-line. Moore"s pass to Evan Stewart was nowhere close to being complete, and Oklahoma State tacked on a field goal after taking over possession for an eight-point lead.
Was the decision to go for it a clear sign that Lanning was concerned that his defense couldn"t stop Oklahoma State? The Cowboys averaged over six yards a play on Saturday and the number was much higher until they slowed the game down in the fourth quarter. And two tipped passes were also a big reason why Oregon was even competitive in the first place.
The Ducks" first touchdown came on a 96-yard pick-6 by Devon Jackson in the first quarter, and a second interception off a deflected pass set up the Ducks at the 1-yard line for their second TD in the second quarter.
Had those passes not fallen into the arms of Oregon defenders, the game could have been a rout. It wasn"t, but it"s still Oregon"s second embarrassing loss in its last three games after Indiana blew out the Ducks 56-22 in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff a season ago.
That loss helped prompt Moore and other key members of the team to return for a run at the national title in 2026. Through two weeks of the season, a national title looks like a long shot. Heck, Oregon doesn"t even look like a playoff team.