Sanders' turnover problems hurt OSU
STILL WATER— The pause in Spencer Sanders' sentence hung in the air as long as one of the Oklahoma State quarterback's deep passes to Tylan Wallace.
“Everybody else played great, they had a great game, and I…” Sanders paused, “I didn't.”
Statistically, Sanders had one of the best games of his career, but he turned the ball over three times in a 41-34 overtime loss to Texas on Saturday night at Boone Pickens Stadium.
“I just had too many mistakes and I can' t do that ,” the red shirt sophomore said after completing 27 of 39 passes for 400 yards and four touchdowns.
But the stat sheet shows his name next to three turnovers as well.
First, a fumble on OSU's second possession of the game, giving up some momentum from an openin g-drive touch down. Sanders and running back C hub a Hubbard seemed to miscommunicate on a zone-read play and the ball popped free in the backfield.
“We' re too far along to have exchange issues like that with those two guys,” coach Mike Gun dy said. “We can't have those things happen — not and beat good football teams.”
In the second quarter, Sanders threw an interception, and fumbled again while being sacked.
In the fourth quarter, it was backup running back LD Brown who fumbled, setting up Texas f or a goahead touchdown.
All the turnovers led to Texas points, 21 in all, and correcting the mistakes will start with some introspection from first-year offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn.
“The first thing I gotta do is go back and look at the tape, see what happened,” Dunn said .“Was it a call by me t hat put ( Sanders) in jeopardy? I don't know.
That's the first place I' m gonna start—I' m gonna start with myself.
“After that, we gotta make sure the obvious things, two hands on the football, lock it away, get it out on time, and if it's not out on time, then you pack it and run.
“But he does so many good things for us when the play breaks down that i t's hard to pull him back and stifle that part of his game.”
Sanders has been down t his boulevard before. He turned the ball over 12 times in a four-game stretch at one point last season, but all indications suggested his turnover woes were behind him.
And it's clear the offense is more potent with him in the driver's seat.
The Cowboys were productive until t he self - inflicted wounds took them down.
Wallace was spectacular, catching 1 1 passes f or 1 87 yards and two touchdowns, though the Longhorns found ways to limit him late in the game.
Hubbard had 72 rushing yards and 34 receiving yards with a TD catch.
“We had some plays drawn up t hat hit, ” Dunn said .“We had some good things, and kind of used up a bunch of our stuff in the first half. What we wanted to do was establish the run in the second half of the game, and we just had a hard time getting it off the ground.
“Back to the drawing board. We gotta get that run game greased up and ready to go.”
Hubbard' s 72 rushing yards came on 25 carries, an average of 2.9 per attempt. Brown added 33 yards on eight carries. And t hough he had a 35-yard run in the second quarter to set up a score, Sanders netted just 11 yards on 15 attempts because of quarterback sacks.
But the math was easy to add up on this one, says the head Poke.
“We lost the turnover ( battle) 5- 0,” said Gundy, who added the fourth-quarter penalty for roughing the punter on fourth-and -22 to the turnover count. “We got a kick returned for a touchdown.
“You have to give Texas credit. They made the plays in the end to win the game, but we didn't give ourselves a chance.
“As I've said many times before, disciplined football, special teams and turnovers is what determines the outcome of games until you get to the latter part of the season. We failed in those areas today and this is the result you'll get.”