Oklahoma State Football: The Nation's Dark Horse Championship Contender

The Oklahoma State Cowboys are flying under the radar over the college football landscape. They quietly have jetted all they way up to sixth in the rankings and stand atop the Big 12 conference at 4-0 (1-0). 

Welcoming the Jayhawks to Stillwater this weekend, the Cowboys hold on to offensive and defensive weapons that no one else has. Watching them come back on the Aggies in College Station two weeks ago, OSU proved to me they belong in the title game this year.

Even in their own state, they are secondary. The Sooners get all the attention and all the press, dropping from first to third in the polls over two consecutive weeks. The Cowboys stayed silent, inching closer to their brothers from Norman.

With quality wins over Arizona and Texas A&M, Weeden and company have consistently shown they have the "right stuff" to go all the way to New Orleans. Not only that, they have the potential to go in there and claim the crystal ball.

The SEC will have a member school in the title game again this year. I can't say whether it will be Alabama, LSU, or even Florida at this point, but whoever the SEC Champion takes the field against will generate much more debate.

Before the season started, it was pretty much centered around Florida State, Oklahoma, and Oregon. Well two of the three are now out of the equation, leaving potential for there to be enormous implications on the Bedlam game this year.

And when I say enormous, I mean the game will pretty much be the equivalent of the SEC championship game, the winner heading to the national title and the loser slumping off to Arizona.

I actually believe this is the most probable situation left out there. You know who is ranked above OSU?

Boise State, the bane of college football. No offense to all those people on the Boise State bus, but you will never make it to a national title game unless you reside in a BCS conference. I love a good underdog, but I will never want to see a Broncos team play an SEC monster in a championship because they are undefeated in the MWC. Beating teams that matter in a conference that matters week-in and week-out will convince me, and what you're doing now is not that. 

Wisconsin, a Big 10 powerhouse. I like the Badgers. They own a state where football is important and they play like it on Saturdays. Wisconsin is a good old-fashioned grind-it-out, beat-'em-down kind of school. Unfortunately for them, after beating a less than impressive Nebraska team at home, they have only one ranked opponent left on the schedule (at No. 19 Illinois).

Oklahoma, a Big 12 powerhouse. OSU gets to play them in a season finale for the ages at home. This game will matter. We'll get to the rest of this in a second.

Finally, LSU/Alabama, two huge powerhouses from the SEC. These two will grind it out in three weeks in Tuscaloosa, giving us a resultant SEC West victor as well as future SEC Champion.

Oklahoma State resides at number six but they have four ranked teams remaining, including third ranked OU at home. Just this fact alone makes Wisconsin and Boise State irrelevant.

OSU is the dark horse champion. Everyone expects OU to finish out the season in a Stoops-like-fashion, crushing A&M in Norman and handling OSU in Stillwater. Then they ride off to New Orleans and we get another OU vs SEC National Title. To me, this is too bland, and Oklahoma State is just the right ingredient to spice this whole deal up.

Weeden and Blackmon will create huge problems in the OU secondary while Randle will gut the middle of defense. OSU's offensive line is a lot better than anyone gives them credit, and the defense may be a little iffy now, but expect a wall of orange and black to slow down Landry Jones.

The Cowboys pull off an upset at home, resulting in their own venture to the Superdome. Everyone underestimates them, and it's time they prove them wrong by sweeping the board, knocking off Stoops and the Sooners, and matching up against the LSU's and Alabama's of this world.

If there is a time to become a college football powerhouse, to reach the upper echelon of the sport, the time is now. With realignment starting up again, the Cowboys want to become a commodity the Pac-12 not only wants, but needs.

Luckily for Oklahoma State, they have all the potential in the world to do just that. I think they can pull it off, and I look forward to a little something different in the title game this year.