Yeah I don’t see much ever in the way of OL rotation anywhere in college, it just doesn’t happen. I’d also like to see a little 4-2-5, our LBers are by far our weakest level, they are just never in position on pass plays and are absolutely swallowed up on run plays. You can look at the boxscores to see the “productivity“ there, woof. Hopefully they vet coached into competency but sure would like to mix in another DL now and again instead so at least have another run defender somewhere in the middle.
Game Thoughts Oklahoma State
- Thread starter cyclone1209
- Start date
It really isn't that common though to regularly rotate players at the position.
The communication, timing, etc. for one OL unit is hard enough and throwing subs in there can complicate it.
My man Gundy has had our D figured out for years, and is the only person who seems to have the consistent ability to carve it up - not even Lincoln Riley had the level of success Gundy has had.
I am not concerned that a Gundy O had a good day vs our D, especially when 1/3rd of their yardage total came on 2 plays, 1 of which was a player issue (Vaughn losing contain and Tampa missing the tackle)
Reading some OSU write up’s about the game. Thought this quote summed up our O-line quite well:
"There were a few times that it looked like Iowa State was setting up a screen, but in reality, three OSU defensive linemen instantly bested their competition."
"There were a few times that it looked like Iowa State was setting up a screen, but in reality, three OSU defensive linemen instantly bested their competition."
After it was over, I thought the same thing.
OSU is struggling so much on offense, they are basically trying to Gundy-scheme a couple explosive plays per game to try and score. This was one of them.
The big issue is that most of the LB we recruited 4 years ago are gone. We missed hard on that LB class. We are young and inexperienced so we pray that they improve to make up for the losses in the secondary that we will have next year.
I think it is a combination. The group we have out there can be decent pass blockers and still be bad run blockers.
Here's my dump of thoughts:
1) Gameday atmosphere - MUCH improved. I've been critical of the gameday experience since I went to WVU 2 years ago. They managed the crowd so much better than we did back then, and this past Saturday was the first time I thought we did a great job. We played hype music at the right times and let it go right up to the snap (just like WVU did). The band was actually rocking much better than I remember as well. The crowd was far from a sellout (weather, etc) but was as pretty darn loud when it needed to be. Concessions were super smooth - probably the fastest concessions I've ever experienced. Entrance was no problem. Grade A from Jamie.
2) Our coaches did not have a great day. There were a number of mistakes that fall on coaching. I'll give them a C-. It was glaringly not good.
2a) The play where we were going to go for it on 4th and short (I think in the 1st qtr). You could tell they were trying to get a play called, but communication wasn't good enough to go ahead with it. I'm not saying the delay was bad (it wasn't). But you could tell that CMC wasn't happy with the inability to get a play in to attempt that 4th and short.
2b) The long TD where Caleb Bacon was trying to cover their RB. It was super easy to see exactly how that play was going to go down before the snap. They motioned the RB out of the slot to the far sideline, when #50 went with him, it was obvious. It could have been an execution problem on the D where the safeties were supposed to shift in that case, but either way the D was not setup for that play. So possibly Heacock, possibly Fryler?
2c) Why in gods name do we show our formation after a timeout? There were at least 2 occasions where after a timeout, we'd line up for a play with 20-30 seconds on the tv timeout clock. FFS just stay in a huddle until the ref winds the clock - don't give their defense all the time in the world to line up how they want.
2d) Don't punt the ball with 20+ seconds on the clock when seemingly the previous 3 plays were all about killing the clock. That was really dumb and is on the coaches.
2e) There was a play earlier in the game where Becht changed the play at the line to a run play on a 3rd down. The defense knew exactly what was going to happen. That's again on the coaches. If you're going to audible to a run, it can't be that obvious. Now to give credit, we did use the counter to that later in the game and it worked beautifully.
2f) there was a sequence when we had a TV timeout. Heacock got the entire team together in a huddle. CMC was obviously chatting with the coaches in the box. I don't know if it was necessarily a bad thing, but it was interesting that if you didn't know, you'd think Heacock was the head coach at the time. Yes, we were on defense - but it was both offense and defense in the huddle. Best case scenario, CMC was working out some of the issues mentioned above with the coaches upstairs.
3) Norton's injury. I'm calling BS that it was a stinger. His reaction was that of someone who knows he's injured and will have a long recovery. I've seen it from many people who for example have gone through an ACL reconstruction only to injure it again. It's possible it's not as bad as Norton thought, but I personally would be surprised to see him in the next few weeks. It absolutely looked like a significant shoulder injury.
4) Daniel Jackson was the biggest difference in this game compared to the rest of the season. Noel had a good game too (but he did have 1 drop), but having Jackson was a big difference. On his TD catch he had a FILTHY move at the line that made his defender fall down. He also had a number of nice routes to find space. If defenses are going to take away the downfield TE and Noel, it's huge to have Jackson step up to be a 3rd option.
5) Becht IS the next Brock Purdy. I know many are going to balk at this, but I'm comfortable saying it. Purdy might have more wiggle and has the pump fake, but Becht might actually be more accurate. He's at least as good at seeing the field and is at least as accurate as Purdy was his freshman year. Becht probably even has a quicker release and a touch better arm strength. Regardless of who has the edge in specific categories, Becht IS 100% as good as Purdy was his freshman year at the QB position. A guy at the WVU game 2 years ago was lamenting that WVU didn't recruit Becht (his dad played at WVU). That guy was right.
6) We're missing 4 of the 6 players who got caught up in the gambling deal. Grant Treiber, Isiah Lee, DeShawn Hanika, Jirehl Brock. All would help with leadership and depth. Sauser I don't think would have played, but who knows with the OL.
7) Special teams is 1000x better than it ever has been under CMC. Yes we missed a couple FG's last week - I don't care, it's still that much better. There are still some details to be worked out there, especially snap/hold on the FG unit. But seriously what a huge breath of fresh air to NOT be scared of kickoffs, punts, punt return, etc.
8) Coach Nate S. called a pretty good game. I loved the RB screen, even though the execution wasn't great. Same with the QB run on 4th and short even though it didn't work. Flea flicker, hell freaking yes (by the way, that 100% should have been defensive holding on that play on BOTH cornerbacks). Again I don't care that it didn't work, but when you're so predictable that you may as well be giving the opposition your play calls, you HAVE to make these types of counter calls. Some won't work out and that's okay. It's like taking a deep shot that doesn't work. Even if it doesn't work, the defense has to think about it and that can open up the inside run (that we need to use super sparingly).
1) Gameday atmosphere - MUCH improved. I've been critical of the gameday experience since I went to WVU 2 years ago. They managed the crowd so much better than we did back then, and this past Saturday was the first time I thought we did a great job. We played hype music at the right times and let it go right up to the snap (just like WVU did). The band was actually rocking much better than I remember as well. The crowd was far from a sellout (weather, etc) but was as pretty darn loud when it needed to be. Concessions were super smooth - probably the fastest concessions I've ever experienced. Entrance was no problem. Grade A from Jamie.
2) Our coaches did not have a great day. There were a number of mistakes that fall on coaching. I'll give them a C-. It was glaringly not good.
2a) The play where we were going to go for it on 4th and short (I think in the 1st qtr). You could tell they were trying to get a play called, but communication wasn't good enough to go ahead with it. I'm not saying the delay was bad (it wasn't). But you could tell that CMC wasn't happy with the inability to get a play in to attempt that 4th and short.
2b) The long TD where Caleb Bacon was trying to cover their RB. It was super easy to see exactly how that play was going to go down before the snap. They motioned the RB out of the slot to the far sideline, when #50 went with him, it was obvious. It could have been an execution problem on the D where the safeties were supposed to shift in that case, but either way the D was not setup for that play. So possibly Heacock, possibly Fryler?
2c) Why in gods name do we show our formation after a timeout? There were at least 2 occasions where after a timeout, we'd line up for a play with 20-30 seconds on the tv timeout clock. FFS just stay in a huddle until the ref winds the clock - don't give their defense all the time in the world to line up how they want.
2d) Don't punt the ball with 20+ seconds on the clock when seemingly the previous 3 plays were all about killing the clock. That was really dumb and is on the coaches.
2e) There was a play earlier in the game where Becht changed the play at the line to a run play on a 3rd down. The defense knew exactly what was going to happen. That's again on the coaches. If you're going to audible to a run, it can't be that obvious. Now to give credit, we did use the counter to that later in the game and it worked beautifully.
2f) there was a sequence when we had a TV timeout. Heacock got the entire team together in a huddle. CMC was obviously chatting with the coaches in the box. I don't know if it was necessarily a bad thing, but it was interesting that if you didn't know, you'd think Heacock was the head coach at the time. Yes, we were on defense - but it was both offense and defense in the huddle. Best case scenario, CMC was working out some of the issues mentioned above with the coaches upstairs.
3) Norton's injury. I'm calling BS that it was a stinger. His reaction was that of someone who knows he's injured and will have a long recovery. I've seen it from many people who for example have gone through an ACL reconstruction only to injure it again. It's possible it's not as bad as Norton thought, but I personally would be surprised to see him in the next few weeks. It absolutely looked like a significant shoulder injury.
4) Daniel Jackson was the biggest difference in this game compared to the rest of the season. Noel had a good game too (but he did have 1 drop), but having Jackson was a big difference. On his TD catch he had a FILTHY move at the line that made his defender fall down. He also had a number of nice routes to find space. If defenses are going to take away the downfield TE and Noel, it's huge to have Jackson step up to be a 3rd option.
5) Becht IS the next Brock Purdy. I know many are going to balk at this, but I'm comfortable saying it. Purdy might have more wiggle and has the pump fake, but Becht might actually be more accurate. He's at least as good at seeing the field and is at least as accurate as Purdy was his freshman year. Becht probably even has a quicker release and a touch better arm strength. Regardless of who has the edge in specific categories, Becht IS 100% as good as Purdy was his freshman year at the QB position. A guy at the WVU game 2 years ago was lamenting that WVU didn't recruit Becht (his dad played at WVU). That guy was right.
6) We're missing 4 of the 6 players who got caught up in the gambling deal. Grant Treiber, Isiah Lee, DeShawn Hanika, Jirehl Brock. All would help with leadership and depth. Sauser I don't think would have played, but who knows with the OL.
7) Special teams is 1000x better than it ever has been under CMC. Yes we missed a couple FG's last week - I don't care, it's still that much better. There are still some details to be worked out there, especially snap/hold on the FG unit. But seriously what a huge breath of fresh air to NOT be scared of kickoffs, punts, punt return, etc.
8) Coach Nate S. called a pretty good game. I loved the RB screen, even though the execution wasn't great. Same with the QB run on 4th and short even though it didn't work. Flea flicker, hell freaking yes (by the way, that 100% should have been defensive holding on that play on BOTH cornerbacks). Again I don't care that it didn't work, but when you're so predictable that you may as well be giving the opposition your play calls, you HAVE to make these types of counter calls. Some won't work out and that's okay. It's like taking a deep shot that doesn't work. Even if it doesn't work, the defense has to think about it and that can open up the inside run (that we need to use super sparingly).
This has been the biggest issue and it has always been a head coach issue. We just get way too conservative on offense. It isn’t a scheme issue. It is a philosophy of trying to kill clock even when it kills all offensive flow.
I wasn’t able to watch the second half but I’m less optimistic than even after the Ohio game as there wasn’t near as much change as needed there. It was better but it seemed like we would go back to the kill the clock mentality when we got ahead.
I'm hoping we saw enough to keep leaning into it a little more but I am skeptical.
If the team doesn't open up the offense with the run game and continues to average below 2 yards a carry, the season will be over.
Fair, balanced and knowledgeable post. Good job. You are correct on Norton. Unfortunately, I have extensive stinger experience and I find it highly unlikely that was a stinger.
Regarding 2C, I think it is because it also allows us to see how the defense is going to line up.
Regarding 3, my first impression was broken collarbone with the way he was holding his arm (been there, done that).
I am probably hardcore drinking the Koolaid here, but OU did not look that good. They needed 3 turnovers to beat a Cincy team that lost to Miami OH. We will have by far the best defense they have faced all year. I do not anticipate winning again in Norman, however, ISU has been a tough out for OU the last few years, and I fully expect us to give them a game, if the offensive gameplan is similar to this one. If its back to the Ohio gameplan, give me OU by a landslide
I suppose that's fair - if you're going to line up that early, hopefully you get to see the defense's response. But you better have some shifts/audibles ready for whatever you're wanting. Otherwise it's again telegraphing what our play call is.
I thought the game plan was much much better, and it put our guys into better positions overall to be successful. It was less conservative until it was, where we got up by 14 and decided to essentially stop being aggressive, which made the game closer than it should've been. We should've won that game by 17+ imo. Rocco was incredible, and yet instead of allowing him to make plays and put the game away, we got complacent. Our special situation/in game coaching was still pretty bad. Most of what I have to say has already been said, so I don't need to go into it.
With all of that being said though... terrific job by our guys out there Saturday. They played with their hair on fire and it showed. We were fun to watch, even if it was against a poor team.
With all of that being said though... terrific job by our guys out there Saturday. They played with their hair on fire and it showed. We were fun to watch, even if it was against a poor team.
I liked our play calling a lot more than the Ohio game...that said, it's hard to take anything away from this win because it was
a) at home and
b) Oklahoma State is probably the worst or second worst in the conference
I hope the Cyclones prove me wrong against OU....I'm not expecting a win by any means but being more aggressive on the play calling would be nice. Running game is still non-existent.
a) at home and
b) Oklahoma State is probably the worst or second worst in the conference
I hope the Cyclones prove me wrong against OU....I'm not expecting a win by any means but being more aggressive on the play calling would be nice. Running game is still non-existent.
are you telling me Kansas has more talent than us? Their offense doesn't have blue chip talent and they do just fine
