<table> </table> COLUMBIA | The possibility of grabbing the No. 1 ranking in college football was there. On the fingertips of the Missouri Tigers and a sellout crowd of 68,549 at Memorial Stadium.</p><p>On the tip of every Tigers&#8217; tongue. Ah yes, they could just about taste it after No. 5 Texas upset No. 1 Oklahoma earlier on Saturday.</p><p>Missouri &#8212; ranked No. 3 in The Associated Press poll and No. 2 in the <em>USA Today</em>/Coaches Poll &#8212; could see itself as the best team.</p><p>Only on Saturday night, that wasn&#8217;t true.</p><p>No. 17 Oklahoma State handed Missouri its first loss after five straight victories.</p><p>Cowboys 28, Tigers 23.</p><p>And now it is just a matter of how far Mizzou will fall in the rankings, how much damage has been done to MU quarterback Chase Daniel&#8217;s Heisman Trophy aspirations.</p><p>Daniel threw three interceptions, two in the fourth quarter, the final one with 1 minute, 41 seconds to play that snuffed out the Tigers&#8217; last hope at the Oklahoma State 31-yard line.</p><p>&#8220;I put it all on me,&#8221; Daniel said. &#8220;I should have hit those throws. Three interceptions is very uncharacteristic of me.&#8221;</p><p>In fact, Daniel had thrown 160 straight passes without an interception before the first pick by Oklahoma State on the fourth pass of the third quarter.</p><p>Missouri coach Gary Pinkel was having none of that.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re talking about a guy who&#8217;s done some pretty good things around here,&#8221; Pinkel said.</p><p>&#8220;There are a lot of things to look at. You look at the protection, you look at the routes, you look at where the receiver should be or shouldn&#8217;t be.&#8221;</p><p>Missouri rolled up 454 yards of total offense. The MU defense gave up 402 and it was three big plays that hurt as much as Daniel&#8217;s interceptions.</p><p>Missouri, on top 10-7 at the half, gave up a 68-yard touchdown run to Oklahoma State tailback Kendall Hunter and a 40-yard TD reception to Damian Davis the third quarter. Davis, on third and 13, also caught a 31-yard TD pass for the Cowboys&#8217; final score.</p><p>Missouri, down 21-17 but driving, threw away a fourth-quarter scoring opportunity when Daniel threw his second interception, straight to Andre Sexton.</p><p>Patrick Lavine picked the killer at 1:41 to play, sucking the life out of a sellout crowd that was on the edge of its seat all night long waiting for an MU offensive explosion that never came.</p><p>&#8220;We haven&#8217;t been in this situation for a while,&#8221; Pinkel said.</p><p>Missouri came into the game as the nation&#8217;s No. 2 scoring team after scoring 52, 52, 69, 41 and 52 points in a 5-0 start.</p><p>Oklahoma State came in as the country&#8217;s No. 3 scoring team, but wasn&#8217;t nearly as concerned with its failure to score at least 55 points for a fifth straight game.</p><p>&#8220;To beat a team like that on the road is a really great victory for our program,&#8221; said Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, whose Cowboys, now 6-0, should move way up in the national rankings. &#8220;You never know what you can accomplish if you just believe in yourself.&#8221;</p><p>That&#8217;s what made this so tough on the Tigers.</p><p>They believed &#8212; they had to &#8212; that Sunday would bring them a No. 1 ranking in October for the first time in school history, especially after Oklahoma had lost.</p><p>&#8220;Everybody knew that,&#8221; Pinkel said.</p><p>Neither Pinkel nor Daniel thought that played into Missouri&#8217;s first defeat of the year.</p><p>&#8220;You feel just a sense of letdown,&#8221; Daniel said. &#8220;I know it doesn&#8217;t fall all on me. But those three costly turnovers, I didn&#8217;t play as well as I wanted to. I didn&#8217;t distribute the ball as well as I wanted to.&#8221;