Mike Gundy only saw ‘four or five plays’ where Alan Bowman was bad in loss at Kansas State

STILLWATER, Okla. — When Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy returned to Stillwater Saturday afternoon, he stayed in his office to watch film from the Cowboys loss to Kansas State for about five hours.

He keyed in on both sides of the balls, took notes and headed home around 10 p.m. to sleep for a few hours. When watching the game footage, Gundy saw just a few plays from veteran quarterback Alan Bowman that he would classify as “bad” he said Monday.

It wasn’t a plethora of issues and there wasn’t a theme as to why the Cowboys scored just two touchdowns against the Wildcats. Instead, he was annoyed with the timing of the problems and where they occurred on the field.

“I’ll be really honest with you, there was four or five plays that would’ve made the general public say he played really bad, when the other 55 plays he played really good,” Gundy said. “That’s what happens when you play that position…When I graded him Saturday night, that’s what I saw. When I watched it again Sunday with the staff, that pretty much confirmed what I saw.”

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Gundy, who was the starting quarterback for Oklahoma State in the 80s, understands the pressures put on the quarterback better than most and said that Bowman has handled the criticism well.

Bowman completed 26 of his 50 passes for 364 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. Gundy highlighted a few of the miscues that Bowman and the offense had Saturday against Kansas State, including the bad snap that resulted in a turnover and settling for a field goal instead of a touchdown after Korie Black earned an interception.

Overall though, Gundy feels like he’s seeing improvement from his quarterback.

“(Bowman’s) play in this game was much better than his play against Utah,” said Gundy. “There’s not even a comparison. There are four or five plays that are glaring that were really bad. One of them ended up being an interception. He’s older and more mature.”

In the 22-19 loss to Utah a week ago, Bowman was 16-for-33 for 206 yards and threw two interceptions and two touchdowns.

After a couple head scratching games from the veteran, questions were asked about turning to backup quarterbacks Garret Rangel or Zane Flores.