MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia had to play its best game of the year last Saturday to upset 22^nd-ranked Iowa State. Well, it did.
 
And guess what?
 
The Mountaineers (4-4, 2-3) are going to have to do it again this Saturday to knock off 11^th-ranked Oklahoma State (7-1, 4-1), which has the inside track right now over 14^th-ranked Baylor for the second spot in this year's Big 12 championship game.
 
The Cowboys defeated the Bears 24-14 in Stillwater on Oct. 2, and show just a 24-21 loss at Iowa State on their 2021 ledger so far.

"They're the No. 11 team in the country, and they've earned that," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said. "If you go back to 2008, I think Mike Gundy has done just a tremendous job and he's stood the test of time. Credit to him and his staff, who many of them have been with him for a long time, to hold that up.
 
"They play great complimentary football," Brown added. "They run the ball on offense, they're able to hit shot plays and then, defensively, they've been lights out."
 
Oklahoma State's defense is what has the Cowboys knocking on the door of the top 10 with a veteran, aggressive unit that features 10 seniors and eight juniors in the two-deep. As was the case last Saturday, the youthful Mountaineers are going to have to figure out a way to beat a football team that is considerably older and more experienced.
 
A perfect example of Oklahoma State's experience is in its secondary where the Cowboys possess a combined 158 career starts among their top five players. Safety Kolby Harvell-Peel is the headliner of a group considered the second most experienced secondary unit in the country.
 
OSU's experience and toughness in the back end have allowed veteran defensive coordinator Jim Knowles to play even more aggressively this year. The Cowboys are tied with Kansas State for the Big 12 lead with 22 sacks, and it doesn't take an elephant's memory to recall how much OSU's pass rush has affected the outcomes of the recent games against West Virginia.
 
Last year, Tyren Irby's 56-yard, strip-sack fumble return for a touchdown keyed a 20-point second-quarter Oklahoma State outburst that led to a 27-13 Cowboy victory.
 
Three OSU sacks were a factor in its 20-13 victory in Morgantown in 2019, and before that, when Dana Holgorsen was coaching West Virginia, the Cowboy pass rush also feasted on West Virginia.
 
In its current six-game winning streak against the Mountaineers, Oklahoma State has produced 18½ sacks, 43 TFLs, eight forced fumbles and seven interceptions.
 
That's roughly three sacks and seven TFLs for the Cowboys each time they have played West Virginia over the last six years.
 
Therefore, the elusive formula for success for West Virginia on Saturday is going to be to simply block them better.
 
There are signs that's beginning to happen. WVU's offensive line consisting of center Zach Frazier, guards James Gmiter and Doug Nester and tackles Brandon Yates and Wyatt Milum paved the way for the Mountaineers' ground game to generate a season-high 229 yards rushing two weeks ago at TCU, and last Saturday, WVU got 122 yards from its ground game against Iowa State's stingy rush defense.
 
More importantly, West Virginia's O-line has allowed just one sack in its victories against TCU and Iowa State after giving up 16 in its first six games.
 
The stability up front has also been helpful to Jarret Doege, now the Big 12's leading passer averaging 258.9 yards per game. Doege is coming off a WVU-best 370 yards passing in the 38-31 win over the Cyclones, and while the Mountaineers don't have anybody near the top of the Big 12 pass receiving leaders, they have four in the top 20 this week with at least 25 receptions.
 
West Virginia coaches are in agreement the Mountaineer receivers are going to have to win some one-on-one battles with OSU's stout secondary in order to be successful on Saturday.
 
Defensively, the Oklahoma State guys you might want highlight on the two-deep are tackles Brendon Evers and Israel Antwine, linebacker Malcolm Rodriguez and safety Harvell-Peel.
 
On the other side of the ball, Oklahoma State's offense has been statistically unimpressive this year. The Cowboys rank among the bottom third in total offense and passing offense, and their scoring average of 29.4 points per game ranks 60^th this week.
 
But Gundy's team has figured out ways to score points when it needs to this year, as evidenced by its narrow wins over Missouri State, Tulsa, Boise State and Texas.
 
However, last week the Cowboys erupted for 38 first-half points in a 55-3 laugher against Kansas. And before you say it was Kansas, keep in mind the Jayhawk defense blanked fourth-ranked Oklahoma in the first half the week prior.
 
OSU quarterback Spencer Sanders will be playing his 28^th career game on Saturday, but it will be his first against West Virginia. WVU missed Sanders two years ago in the loss in Morgantown and also avoided him last year in Stillwater.
 
The Denton, Texas, resident ranks third in OSU history with an average of 200.4 yards per game passing, and he's fourth in school history with a 62% career completion percentage. This year Sanders is completing a career-low 59.8% of his 171 pass attempts for 1,341 yards and 11 touchdowns.
 
He's also accounted for 298 yards and four touchdowns rushing and has gained 1,195 career yards and scored eight touchdowns on the ground.
 
Last Saturday, West Virginia faced a physical, downhill runner in Iowa State's Breece Hall and the Mountaineers will have to contend with another one in 5-foot-8, 215-pound senior Jaylen Warren, a Utah State transfer. Warren has rushed for 850 yards and scored six touchdowns so far this season, including a season-high 218-yard, two-touchdown performance in the road win at Boise State.
 
Counting his three years at Utah State, Warren has rushed for 1,671 career yards and has topped 100 yards in a game seven times during his college career – four of those coming at Oklahoma State.
 
Perhaps Warren's best performance was the 193 yards he gained in Oklahoma State's come-from-behind, 32-24 win at Texas.
 
"The thing that I really respect about Jaylen Warren is that he runs the ball angry," Brown said. "He is a violent runner. He gets downhill, he breaks tackles. It's impressive." 
 
Wide receivers Tay Martin and Brennan Presley give the Cowboys a pair of burners in the passing game. Martin and Presley have combined to catch 59 passes for 837 yards and nine touchdowns so far this year, and have accounted for 18 of OSU's 32 explosive plays from scrimmage this season.
 
As for special teams, the Cowboys are once again among the top units in the country in kickoff return yardage ranking 10^th with an average of 28.2 yards per return. More pooch kicks may be on the menu for the Mountaineers' coverage unit on Saturday.
 
"They've always had good specialists," Brown said of Oklahoma State.
 
WVU will have to try and beat the Cowboys this weekend without its starting tight end Mike O'Laughlin and starting cornerback Nicktroy Fortune, who have been ruled out for the remainder of the season because of lower body injuries, according to Brown. Both were injured in the TCU win two weeks ago.
 
Saturday's Oklahoma State game will kick off at 3:30 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN (Bob Wischusen, Dan Orlovsky and Kris Budden). 
 
Mountaineer Sports Network coverage on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday begins at noon with the Go-Mart Mountaineer Tailgate Show leading into regular network coverage with Tony Caridi, Dwight Wallace and Jed Drenning at 2:30 p.m.
 
Saturday's game has been deemed Military Appreciation Day with various tributes planned throughout the game to members of our armed forces. Also, 2009 College Football Hall of Fame inductee Major Harris' No. 9 will be officially retired during an on-field ceremony at the end of the first quarter.
 
Harris led West Virginia to its first undefeated, untied regular season record in school history in 1988 and berth in the 1989 Sunkist Fiesta Bowl to face top-ranked Notre Dame for the national championship.
 
"My introduction to West Virginia football (was) being a young fan and watching Major Harris," Brown said. "At the time, he was so unique." 
 
Harris becomes only the fifth WVU football player to have his jersey retired, joining college/professional hall of famers Ira Errett Rodgers, Sam Huff, Bruce Bosley and Darryl Talley. 
 
Tickets remain on sale for Saturday's game and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com. The early AccuWeather forecast is calling for clear skies and temperatures in the high 50s on Saturday.
 
"The hope is we'll have a big crowd. We need them," Brown said. "This is a team that's had our number a little bit, so we're looking forward to getting out there and competing."