Taylor, Cashmore helping improve special teams
Assistants M.K. Taylor and Patrick Cashmore have been instrumental in Oklahoma State’s improvement on special teams.
Two Saturdays ago, in the middle of explaining his frustration with Oklahoma State’s special teams play in a win over South Alabama, coach Mike Gundy inserted one small, but important distinction.
“It’s not the schemes,” Gundy said before reiterating that his frustration was with the players’ discipline in execution.
Gundy likes what the new duo orchestrating the No. 15 Cowboys’ special teams plans are doing. He likes it so much, he took credit for the specialists’ performance in Saturday’s win over Boise State.
“I took over punt return last week, and did it for just this game,” Gundy joked on Monday as his team prepares for its Big 12 opener against Texas Tech at 6 p.m. Saturday at Boone Pickens Stadium.
“I just wanted to take it for a week and guide them through.”
The real masterminds behind OSU’s two blocked punts and other solid special teams play on Saturday were analyst M.K. Taylor, a former long snapper for Alabama, and graduate assistant Patrick Cashmore, who has been involved in special teams coaching at two collegiate stops before arriving in Stillwater.
“They have a difficult job because of me,” Gundy said. “I like to think I’m a special teams coach ... so they have to listen to all the dumb ideas that I have and politely say, ‘Coach, I don’t think that’ll work.’ And they do a good job of that.”
Oklahoma State’s special teams play was spotty last season and has seen its struggles, off and on, since the early days of Gundy’s tenure, when Joe DeForest was in charge.
Taylor and Cashmore have brought a new approach to Stillwater, and Saturday was a sign that things are moving in the right direction.
After Alabama, Taylor began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Jacksonville State. He was there from 2015-17, spending the last two seasons as the special teams coordinator.
His hiring at OSU was announced in late January.
“We hired M.K., and then said, ‘You’ve got one spot. You find your guy, whoever you want. He just needs to meet a certain criteria for me,’” Gundy said. “Other than that, I don’t care who you hire. You’ve got to work with him.”
That was a crucial decision, because that person — who would fill a graduate assistant position — would be Taylor’s voice with the players.
As an analyst, Taylor is fully involved in developing film breakdown, game plans and scheme creation, but he can’t coach the players during practice or games.
After interviewing
a few coaches, Taylor settled on Cashmore, who came with a recommendation from a former Cowboy assistant, Robby Discher of Toledo. Discher, the Rockets’ special teams coordinator, had held the same position as a grad assistant at OSU in 2014-15.
Cashmore worked under Discher at Toledo as a quality control coach.
A running back at Drake from 2008-11, Cashmore started his coaching career at Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska. After two years there, he headed to junior-college power Iowa Western as the special teams coordinator for two more years. Then he joined the Rockets for 2016-17.
He came to Stillwater in the offseason, filling the role of offensive graduate assistant and special teams coordinator.
And he brought some excitement with him.
“Just a little jazz,” said OSU sophomore Amen Ogbongbemiga, who was responsible for one of the two blocked punts against Boise State. “He tries to get us fired up. Maybe last year, we weren't as fired up as we should've been.
“But Cash, he knows what he's doing.”
Together, Taylor and Cashmore have a different approach than what Gundy is used to.
“I’m learning on the run,” Gundy said. “I’m actually biting my lip and letting them do things the way they want to do it, because that’s what they know. They think the same way and they believe in the same schemes.”
As Big 12 play arrives, special teams play becomes even more valuable, and the good mojo from Saturday could continue to pay off.
“Punt blocks and stuff like that, they swing momentum so fast,” Ogbongbemiga said. “So that was a great feeling for us as a unit.”