Cowboys trying to clean up run game
STILLWATER — Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy began with coaching clichés to describe his team's woeful performance running the football last Saturday against Missouri State.
“It was the typical, ‘one guy away.' You hear that all the time,” Gundy said. By the end of his weekly Monday press conference, Gundy was mimicking the movements of linemen through a play to show what happened on a particular blown blocking assignment in Saturday's game.
The Cowboys rushed for 54 yards on 28 attempts, an average of 1.9 yards per carry, which would be considered a bad performance in a tough, late-season conference game. For a season opener against a Football Championship Subdivision opponent, those numbers are scary bad.
This week, the Cowboys play host to Tulsa at 11 a.m. Saturday at Boone Pickens Stadium, and the Golden Hurricane is sure to give the Pokes a fight at the line of scrimmage. In its loss to UC Davis last Thursday, Tulsa's run defense was one of the brighter spots, giving up just 88
yards on 46 carries — coincidentally, an average of 1.9 yards per attempt.
Gundy said the struggles were a group effort, starting with the coaching staff for failing to have players prepared. Beyond that, offensive linemen missed assignments, and running backs misread holes or were unable to make a defender miss a tackle.
“Several times, we were one block away from being a lot better in the running game,” Gundy said. “That’s something we’ve got to work on this week and get cleaned up.
“There were a couple times that there was more yards available, in our opinion. But for the most part, we had one guy that was lacking on several running plays that kept us from getting in the open field to where it would give them a chance to really make that one guy miss.”
That one guy was a different player each time, meaning the fix will take more than a basic personnel change. And sometimes, an OSU blocker simply got beat by the guy across from him.
“I’m gonna guess five or six times, one of the front five guys was not as good as what we wanted him to be,” Gundy said. “It wasn’t really mental mistakes. They (the opponents) get to coach, too. Their guys defeated the block and our guys didn’t finish the block. That’s what it came down to.”
The Cowboys’ longest rush of the game was a 13yarder by receiver Braydon Johnson on a reverse. The longest carry by a running back was an 11-yarder by LD Brown, who finished with 30 yards on 15 carries.
Sophomore quarterback Shane Illingworth dropped back to pass 42 times. He got the ball away on 40 of them, completing 22 for 315 yards. He scrambled for a short gain once and was sacked for a loss once.
“We protected really well, probably the best protection we’ve had in a long, long time,” Gundy said.
But the inability to run the football created difficulties in the passing game, because Missouri State was able to pull an extra defender into coverage, rather than worrying about filling the box to stop the run.
Gundy has been excited about his running back group all preseason, and on Monday, he remained confident in them and their blockers to fix what was broken on Saturday.
“We’ll be fine,” Gundy said. “We need to get some things cleaned up. We had a couple things happen that were unusual.”
That’s when Gundy began acting out a play from the game in which a pulling blocker ran past a defender he should’ve blocked, a mistake that Gundy said could have been avoided with additional work in practice.
“All he needed to do… was get here and make that block,” Gundy said. “(The running back) might be out in Weatherford by now, still running.
“The point being is, it’s little things like that. I’m just trying to give an illustration of things that can be cleaned up through reps.
“We need to do a better job of showing them the looks that they’re gonna get in the game, and that way, you have a better chance for success.”