STILLWATER, OKLA. ? Roderrick Jackson has faced his fair share of talented receivers the past two seasons.

Last year, the Wyoming cornerback lined up against All-American Reggie Williams of Washington and Tennessee’s Kelley Washington. That’s not even counting the others who give the Mountain West Conference its pass-happy reputation.

Today, Jackson draws the unenviable task of shadowing Oklahoma State’s Rashaun Woods. Making things tougher, Woods will be trying to rebound from one of the worst games of his career last week against Nebraska.

“That’s life,” Jackson said. “I did pretty well against those other guys, so we’ll see.”

If Wyoming didn’t have enough challenges for its defense, first-year coach Joe Glenn also has to figure out how to coax improvement from his struggling offense.

In last week’s matchup against Division I-AA Montana State, Wyoming picked up only 236 yards and surrendered six quarterback sacks in a sloppy 21-10 win.

Nonetheless, the victory was a serious boost to the confidence of a team that had won just five games in the last three years under Vic Koenning. Many of the players credit the team’s early success to the arrival of Glenn, who went 39-6 in three seasons at Montana, including a Division I-AA title in 2001.

Things get tougher for Wyoming today. In their next two outings, Wyoming will face Big 12 Conference members OSU and Kansas.

“We’d used to go into games just hoping not to lose,” said Wyoming quarterback Casey Bramlet, who threw for 203 yards and a touchdown last week. “We’re approaching games with a lot more confidence and a lot more excitement.”

Las Vegas was less impressed with last week’s effort — Wyoming enters today’s game as a 20-point underdog.

There’s not many folks outside of Laramie, Wyo., who think these Cowboys can beat the Big 12 Cowboys, something Glenn has used as fodder to motivate his team.

“We’re headed down to Stillwater to find out who the real Cowboys are,” Glenn said with a laugh. “We have been referred to in one publication as one of the four cupcakes (Oklahoma State) has got coming up. That’s one of the ones I really like.”

For a chance at an unlikely win, though, Jackson will have to come up with one of the best performances of his career.

He’ll be at a serious size disadvantage — he gives up 3 inches and 35 pounds to Woods — but like most of his teammates, he’s hoping his spunk will make up whatever difference there might be in overall talent.

“I can see the hunger in this team,” the 5-foot-11, 164-pound Jackson said. “I will never get down on myself for any reason, whether the circumstances seem to be bad or not.”

The circumstances are this: Oklahoma State is going to be looking for Woods, no matter who’s covering him.

In this showdown of Cowboys, it’s the ones from Stillwater who are trying to regroup following a deflating loss at Nebraska. The defeat dropped Oklahoma State out of the AP Top 25 and left the team curious about what slowed down its all-star trio of Woods, quarterback Josh Fields and running back Tatum Bell.

Woods caught just five passes for 47 yards and a touchdown. It was his lowest production in 15 games. Bell ran for 83 yards, but had a third-quarter fumble that was scooped up and returned for the game-turning score.

Fields, meanwhile, was pummeled throughout the game so violently that coach Les Miles began checking with team trainers “on a pretty regular basis.”