Published: September 02, 2008 10:09 am            

Ready to rumble

13,500 additional seats in place for Saturday

When Oklahoma State opens its home schedule Saturday, there will be a noticeable change at Boone Pickens Stadium.

Fans will be seated in the west end zone.

Though the entire project will not be finished until the 2009 opener against Georgia, the 13,500-seat section in the west end zone was recently completed. The Cowboys’ stadium now has a capacity of approximately 60,000 and ranks sixth in size in the Big 12.

A year ago, OSU’s capacity was 44,700 — which ranked as the conference’s smallest football venue. The Cowboys host Houston at 6:05 p.m. Saturday, and with the new bowled-in seating ready for use, Mike Gundy expects a rise in the noise level.

“With the new stadium, there should be some added excitement,” the O-State boss added.

“This is a loud stadium to play in to start with, and I would think now with the enclosure and the sound bouncing off (Gallagher-Iba Arena), there should be some crowd noise and it should be an advantage for us. There’ll be a lot of people wearing orange here.”

Crowd noise shouldn’t be a concern for the Cowboys (1-0). Last weekend, they routed Washington State, 39-13, in front of 50,830 fans at Qwest Field — home of the Seattle Seahawks and one of the loudest facilities the NFL has to offer.

“Our center (Andrew Lewis) couldn’t even hear (quarterback Zac Robinson),” said OSU sophomore Dez Bryant. “Zac had to come up to the line a couple of times and (Lewis) still couldn’t hear him. Our offensive linemen had to tap him to tell him to hike the ball.”

The Cowboys were able to overcome the crowd factor but still faced some struggles in their opener. Though the defense — which held the Cougars to just 196 yards of offense — and the special teams thrived, there were three times when the OSU offense was inside the 10-yard line and had to settle for field goals.

“You win, 39-13, and then you watch the tape and wonder how you won by that many points because there’s still so many mistakes in college football,” Gundy said. “We got a long ways to go in all three phases but we feel better about where we’re at now than we did at this time last year.

“The coaches may not have had them prepared for it the best we could, but it’s not something from an X’s and O’s standpoint that we can’t correct.”

Gundy admitted he didn’t know much about OSU’s next opponent even after watching film of its first game. Houston — led by first-year coach Kevin Sumlin, who was a member of Oklahoma’s staff from 2003-07 — crushed Southern, 55-3, last Saturday.

“Don’t really have much to watch — it was (38-3) at the half,” Gundy said. “There’s not a lot to watch and evaluate other than athletic ability.”

Houston (1-0) won the most recent meeting against the Cowboys, claiming a 34-25 home victory in 2006.



Elite company

During the win against WSU, junior Perrish Cox returned a kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown. It was his third career kickoff return for a TD, which tied the program record set by 1988 Heisman Trophy winner Barry Sanders.

Cox is also tied for the lead in that category among all active Football Bowl Subdivision players.

Making the call

Gundy was responsible for the offensive play-calling in last Saturday’s game instead of co-offensive coordinators Gunter Brewer and Trooper Taylor. The Cowboys finished with 367 yards including 193 in the air.

“We had some noise problems, but as far as communication with the coaches and getting everything in, we were standing there waiting a lot and we had a lot of time so we felt pretty good about that,” Gundy said.

        

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