Oklahoma State University Athletics
Cowboy Football
- Title:
- Quarterbacks
Louisiana Tech, 2001
• Tim Rattay joined the Oklahoma State football staff as quarterbacks coach in January of 2020. Prior to that he coached quarterbacks for the Washington Redskins in 2019 after spending the previous six seasons at Louisiana Tech.
• In 2023, Rattay coached Alan Bowman to the seventh-highest single-season passing yards total in school history (3,460) and the third-most passing yards against Power Five opponents in the FBS (3,338). Despite splitting time in the first three games, Bowman finished the year ranked No. 15 among FBS quarterbacks in passing yards. He also finished No. 7 in the nation and No. 4 in school history with 304 completions on the year. As a team, OSU produced one of its top passing years ever as its numbers for attempts, completions, yards and yards per game all ranked among the top 10 single-season marks in OSU history.
• Rattay coached three different starting quarterbacks in 2022, including redshirt senior Spencer Sanders, redshirt freshman Gunnar Gundy and true freshman Garret Rangel. Sanders started nine games, leading the Big 12 and ranking No. 14 among all FBS players with 303.3 yards of total offense per game. He also led the conference and was 25th in the FBS with 264.2 passing yards per game. Rangel’s 711 passing yards ranked as the third-most among Power Five true freshmen, and Gundy went 1-0 in his lone start against Iowa State
• In 2021, Rattay coached Sanders on his way to becoming the second player in school history to earn first team all-conference honors at quarterback. Sanders earned the honor after finishing the year ranked No. 1 in the league with 269.8 yards of total offense per game.
• Under Rattay’s tutelage, Sanders capped his junior season in 2021 as the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl Offensive MVP after finishing the game with 371 passing yards and four touchdowns to go with 125 rushing yards on 17 carries. Sanders joined former Clemson’s Tajh Boyd as the only FBS players to record 350 pass yards, 100 rush yards and four touchdowns in a bowl game, and his performance was a critical piece of engineering the largest come-from-behind win in Oklahoma State and Fiesta Bowl history.
• Sanders’ 2021 season under Rattay also included a 344-yard passing day on 22 of 34 attempts in a win over AP-ranked Kansas State. It was a performance that netted him a national honor as the Manning Award Quarterback of the Week.
• Rattay coached Sanders to increase his total offense average and throw a lower percentage of interceptions every year of his career. Sanders’ total offense average moved from 244.8 in 2019 (prior to Rattay’s coaching) to 252.9 in 2020 to 269.8 in 2021 and to 303.3 in 2022. His interception percentage lowered by 1.9 percent as a sophomore, by another 0.2 percent as a junior and by 0.6 percent as a senior. Additionally, Sanders’ touchdowns-responsible-for to turnovers-responsible-for ratio has improved from 1.1 (prior to Rattay’s coaching) to 1.6 to 2.0 to 2.6 in each of those seasons.
• In his first season in Stillwater in 2020, Rattay coached starting quarterback Spencer Sanders to honorable mention All-Big 12 honors and Cheez-It Bowl MVP honors. Under Rattay’s guidance, Sanders finished the season ranked second in the Big 12 with 8.13 yards per pass attempt and third in the conference with a passing efficiency of 143.2. Sanders’ total QBR from ESPN improved more than four points from the previous season.
• Helped Spencer Sanders finish 2020 with three 300-yard passing games, including a 400-yard day against Texas, after entering the season with no career 300-yard games. Sanders’ 4,072 career passing yards at the end of his sophomore year ranked as the second-most ever for an OSU sophomore, trailing only the 4,623 Mason Rudolph tallied from 2014-15.
• Rattay dealt with significant adversity in his first game at OSU in 2020 as starter Spencer Sanders was hurt on the second series and missed the remainder of the game and all of the next two. Rattay guided reserve true freshman Shane Illingworth in relief, helping the Cowboys go 3-0 in Sanders’ absence. Illingworth was named Big 12 Newcomer of the Week after stepping in and earned recognition on the midseason FWAA Freshman All-America Watch List.
• To this day, Rattay remains LA Tech’s single-season and career leader in passing touchdowns. He passed for 4,943 passing yards in 1998 and his 411.9 passing yards per game that season stands as the ninth-best single-season mark in FBS history. He was enshrined into the Louisiana Tech Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007.
• He was selected in the seventh round (212th overall) of the 2000 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers and spent six seasons with the team. His NFL career included stops in Tampa Bay in 2006, Tennessee in 2007 and Arizona in 2007. Rattay appeared in 40 games in his career with 18 starts and finished 432-of-714 passing for 4,853 yards with 31 touchdowns.
• He broke into coaching in 2011 with the Las Vegas Locomotives of the United Football League and in his two seasons there, the Locomotives went 7-1 with their only loss coming against in the 2011 UFL championship game.
• At the college level, Rattay coached receivers at Louisiana Tech from 2013-15 and shifted into the role of quarterbacks coach from 2016-18. In Rattay’s six seasons in Ruston, the Bulldogs went 46-33, won two Conference USA West Division titles and were 5-0 in bowl games.
• In 2016, Rattay coached Ryan Higgins, who finished the season with 329 completions for 4,617 yards and 41 touchdowns against just eight interceptions. Higgins was honored as the Conference USA Most Valuable Player that season.
• Rattay helped develop quarterback J’Mar Smith at Louisiana Tech. Smith went on to become the Conference USA Offensive Player of the Year in 2019.
• In his lone season with the Redskins, quarterbacks Case Keenum and Dwayne Haskins Jr. combined to pass for more than 3,000 yards.
• A native of Phoenix, Ariz., Rattay started his collegiate playing career at Scottsdale Community College in 1996 before transferring to Louisiana Tech in 1997. He graduated in 2001 with a degree in general studies and is married to the former Allison Walker, who played volleyball for LA Tech. The couple has three children, Riley, Taylor and Sloane.
Year By Year
| 2011-12 | Las Vegas Locomotives | Receivers |
| 2013-15 | Louisiana Tech | Receivers |
| 2016-18 | Louisiana Tech | Quarterbacks |
| 2019 | Washington Redskins | Quarterbacks |
| 2020-pres. | Oklahoma State | Quarterbacks |
Post-Season Experience
2014 Heart of Dallas Bowl
2015 New Orleans Bowl
2016 Armed Forces Bowl
2017 Frisco Bowl
2018 Hawaii Bowl
2020 Cheez-It Bowl
2021 Fiesta Bowl
2022 Guaranteed Rate Bowl
2023 Texas Bowl
Prominent Pupils
Ryan Higgins, Louisiana Tech
J’Mar Smith, Louisiana Tech
Dwayne Haskins Jr., Washington Football Team
Case Keenum, Washington Football Team
Spencer Sanders, Oklahoma State
