Oklahoma State University Athletics
Barry Blog - Game 3: Tulsa
September 18, 2008 | Cowboy Football
Game 3: Tulsa Golden Hurricane
Oct 1, 1988 - Written by Randy Krehbiel
Randy Krehbiel is a writer for the Tulsa World. In 1988, Krehbiel was of the World sports writers assigned with covering the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
With Barry Sanders, you were never disappointed.
No matter how many rabbits he'd pulled out of a hat the week before he always topped it. He knew more tricks than Harry Houdini. He could get around, through, over and under people more ways than Inspector Gadget.
He always sent the fans home believing they'd seen something no one else ever had.
We did not yet fully understand this when Oklahoma State played Tulsa in the third game of the 1988 season. Sanders had rushed for 335 yards in the first two games and run a kickoff and a punt back for touchdowns. He led the nation in rushing, all-purpose yards and kickoff returns. But Sanders had never really had to slug it out game after game, play after play, and some wondered whether the little guy could hold up carrying the ball twenty-five or thirty times a game.
Against Tulsa, we found out. The Hurricane rode OSU's great receiver Hart Lee Dykes out of the game so Sanders caught the ball swinging out of the backfield. Tulsa took away Sanders' lightning-strike kick returns so he wore them down from the line of scrimmage. He rushed for 304 yards, breaking Thurman Thomas' school record, and proved his durability by carrying the ball 33 times. He scored five rushing touchdowns, tying a 19-year-old Big Eight Conference record set by Heisman laureate Steve Owens, and fumbled a sixth into the end zone for Dykes to recover.
This was the game that convinced everybody that Barry Sanders was an inexhaustible source of wonder. It was the game that brought out the national press and caused Barry Switzer – Barry Switzer! – to declare Sanders the best player in the country. Our sports editor at the Tulsa World, Bill Connors, had seen them all and admitted none was quite like Sanders.
The game itself was fairly typical for OSU that season. The Cowboys led 27-0 at halftime and 34-6 in the third quarter but needed two fourth-quarters touchdowns from Sanders and each of those 304 yards to win.
Tulsa had beaten Kansas State and narrowly lost at Arkansas. It had a good offensive team and played its guts out, as it usually did against OSU. The Hurricane closed to within 13 points before the end of the third quarter and trailed by 14 with the ball inside OSU's 20 late in the game.
Those final minutes were illuminating. The Cowboys' punch-drunk defense stopped TU on downs at the OSU 16, and on the next play Sanders ran his team out of the hole with a 26-yard gain on his 31st carry of the night. Then quarterback Mike Gundy threw a scrambling 36-yard completion to Dykes – only Dykes' second catch of the game – and Sanders ran it in from nine yards for his fifth touchdown of the game.
Afterward, Tulsa Coach Dave Rader compared Sanders to Auburn Heisman Trophy winner Bo Jackson and said Sanders "deserves all of the accolades that are handed out."
"I said at some point we would have to pump it to Barry 30 or 40 times," said OSU Coach Pat Jones. "They were doing things to take Dykes out of the game and for awhile there were afraid to throw it any more than we absolutely had to."
So that's what the Cowboys did. They gave the ball to Sanders.
He didn't disappoint them.
