BCS Standings: Oklahoma State Won't Need Defense To Reach National Title Game

Defense? Who needs it?!

Oklahoma State certainly doesn't, not to reach the BCS National Championship Game in New Orleans. The Cowboys checked in at No. 3 in the latest BCS rankings, thanks in large part to a shocking home loss to Texas Tech by in-state rival Oklahoma. The Sooners' strife put the Pokes in the driver's seat to win the Big 12 and, in turn, play LSU or Alabama for the crystal football.

Running the table from here on out will be no easy task for Mike Gundy's men, though the lack of a strong defense shouldn't be too much of an impediment to the team's success. The Pokes have posted 48.6 points per game this season, with a high of 70 against Kansas and a low of 30 in a narrow victory at Texas A&M.

Folks in Stillwater can thank the dynamic, Heisman-worthy duo of Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon for their favorite squad's success, though some credit should be reserved for Joseph Randle. The sophomore from Wichita has proven himself an able fill-in for Kendall Hunter, who now plays for the San Francisco 49ers. Randle had his finest performance of the season against Missouri on Saturday, piling up 151 yards and four touchdowns in OK State's 45-24 win in Columbia.

The Cowboys will need him, as well as Weeden and Blackmon, to be on top of their respective games down the stretch, with a slew of Wild West-style shootouts left on the slate. The Pokes will face three of the top nine scoring offenses in the country over the next five weeks, starting with Baylor (sixth) on Saturday, followed by No. 20 Texas Tech (ninth) on Nov. 12 and, of course, No. 9 Oklahoma (seventh) in the Bedlam game at T. Boone Pickens Stadium.

That last game, against the Sooners, now appears much more daunting on paper than it once did after the way Mizzou and Texas Tech managed to tear apart OU's talented defense. As good as the Tigers and the Red Raiders are at piling up yardage and lighting up scoreboards, no team in the Big 12 can quite match the firepower that the Pokes holster on a weekly basis.

As such, if the Cowboys can dictate the tempo of the game against the hated Sooners, as they should with the home crowd behind them, the Big 12 will be all theirs.

However, given OK State's torturous football history, that's far from a foregone conclusion. The Cowboys haven't claimed victory in Bedlam since 2002, when they upended the third-ranked Sooners in Stillwater.

For now, though, the Pokes can take comfort in knowing that they need only do what they do best—score early and often—to secure their first-ever BCS bowl berth and compete for their first-ever national championship all in one fell swoop.

As for how OK State would actually fare against LSU or Alabama once they get there, well, that's a different (and much more disheartening) story.