All the pieces fell into place for Oklahoma State to be upset by Iowa State

“Balls going straight up in the air,” he said. “Those are things you can't really control, but they're still on me. As a quarterback, they're on me.

“I've got to find a way to make a throw and avoid hands over head, that's just a part of playing quarterback.”

Randle was benched a long while after his second fumble, but his replacement, Jeremy Smith, dropped two passes during one fourth-quarter drive.

“We talk all year offensively about doing the little things right,” Monken said, “taking care of the football, and we didn't do that. And when you don't do that, you're going to lose a bunch of games.”

Defensively, the Cowboys struggled to corral Iowa State quarterback Jared Barnett, who ran for 84 yards and passed for 376 and three touchdowns.

“The quarterback's a very good athlete, we knew that going in,” said OSU defensive coordinator Bill Young. “He made us look silly at times.”

In the first overtime, the Cyclones made the Cowboys look silly again, scoring on the first play with Barnett hitting a wide-open James White out of the backfield for a go-ahead touchdown.

“Excellent call in the overtime,” Young said, “when they ran the wheel route out the back end, a play we hadn't seen.”

In the second overtime, after Weeden was picked off, the Cyclones bulled their way into the end zone with Jeff Woody runs of 6, 15 and 4 yards.

“We were in a blitz to supposedly stop that run,” Young said. “We knew they were going to do that and try to set up a field goal. We were bringing an all-out blitz trying to stop that, but obviously we didn't get it done.”

As only it could be scripted.

“There's definitely a lot of plays we wish we could have back,” said Cowboys receiver Tracy Moore. “But we can't.”