Oklahoma State went winless in the Big 12 a year after reaching the championship game.

The Cowboys lost 52-0 to No. 25 Colorado on Saturday, capping a 3-9 season that included an 0-9 record in Big 12 play. It was the worst loss ever for coach Mike Gundy, who was coming off his worst season as a coach, and the first time Oklahoma State hasn’t won at least four games in a season since the Cowboys went 3-8 in 2000.

It was a miserable performance for the Cowboys. The offense couldn’t do anything with freshman QB Maealiuaki Smith at the helm, and the pass defense was crushed by Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders.

Oklahoma State turned the ball over three times and even committed three personal foul penalties in a first quarter that featured three touchdowns for the Buffaloes. The game was over after Colorado built a 21-0 lead that included an 11-yard pass to prohibitive Heisman favorite Travis Hunter.

Hunter finished the game with 10 catches for 116 yards and three touchdowns. His final touchdown catch was a 23-yard grab in man coverage that put the Buffs up 52 points.

Oh, he had an interception too.

The Cowboys had a 10-4 record a season ago and lost to Texas in the Big 12 title game before closing the season with a win in the Texas Bowl. It was the eighth time in 19 seasons that a Gundy-coached team won at least ten games.

This season, along with a number of returning starters like RB Ollie Gordon, QB Alan Bowman and WR Brennan Presley, resulted in a preseason ranking of No. 17 in the AP Top 25 and made Oklahoma State one of the favorites in a deep Big 12 field .

The Cowboys started the season 3-0, but everything fell apart from there.

A 22-19 home loss to Utah early in Big 12 play resulted in a meeting of the conference’s two worst teams. A week after the loss to the Utes, OSU was defeated by Kansas State and then lost by 24 to West Virginia. A close matchup against BYU on Oct. 18 — when the Cougars got a late touchdown to win the game — was the closest Oklahoma State came to a conference win.

In early November, Gundy apologized for his comments at a press conference when the team was 0-6. When discussing fans’ criticism of the team during the losing streak, Gundy said that “most people are weak” and “they break down and panic” when things don’t go well, also saying that “in “In most cases the people who are are weak.” Being negative and speaking your mind are the same things that can’t pay their own bills.”

Given the way Oklahoma State played in 2024, you can understand why fans criticized a program that had been to a bowl game for 18 straight seasons. A loss to TCU a week after Gundy’s comments meant Oklahoma State would not appear in a bowl for the first time since Gundy’s first season.

Colorado’s win eliminates TCU, Texas Tech and West Virginia from the Big 12 title game. However, the Buffaloes still need some help to get to the Big 12 title game. Colorado entered Week 14 tied at the top of the conference at 6-2 with Arizona State, BYU and Iowa State. The Buffs are on the wrong side of a three- or four-way tiebreaker and must lose two of the three other teams on Saturday to reach the conference title game.