On Whether Jalen McCleskey’s Transfer and Taylor Cornelius’ Play Are Connected

When I heard the news that Jalen McCleskey would be transferring due to lack of touches, I wanted to figure out why he wasn’t getting the ball as much this season. I also wanted to verify that he really wasn’t getting the ball as much as he had in the past.

To answer the latter first, I took a look at his reception-per-game average over the past two seasons and compared them to this season.

• 2016: 5.6 receptions per game
• 2017: 4.2 receptions per game
• 2018: 3.8 receptions per game

As you can see, there was a much more significant dropoff from 2016 to 2017 than from 2017 to this season. However, this is primarily attributable to Marcell Ateman’s absence in 2016. Ateman caught 59 passes a year ago, and with Mason Rudolph’s total attempts only increasing slightly, McCleskey was bound to see a decline year-over-year.

One would think that this season McCleskey’s targets would increase with both James Washington and Ateman no longer on the roster, so maybe it was the reduction in attempts from Rudolph to Taylor Cornelius. I took a look at Rudolph’s attempts per game from both 2016 and 2017 compared to Cornelius’ attempts per game this season.

• Rudolph 2016:- 34.5 attempts per game
• Rudolph 2017: 37.6 attempts per game
• Cornelius 2018: 34.5 attempts per game

So not a huge dropoff in attempts from Rudolph to Corn Dog.

The next thing I wanted to review was McCleskey’s targets this season. The Athletic’s Max Olson pointed out yesterday that McCleskey, Dillon Stoner and Tyron Johnson all had the same amount of targets through the first four games.

For what it’s worth: Jalen McCleskey got the same number of targets (23) as Dillon Stoner and Tyron Johnson thru 4 games.

— Max Olson (@max_olson) September 24, 2018

However, when you start to break it down game by game, you see that 10 of those 23 targets came against Missouri State, while the other 13 were spread out over the next three games. What could be the cause of this drop off in targets for the senior wideout?

The defensive schemes could play a factor. Although, teams like Texas Tech tend to leave the middle open with their defensive alignment. It could be the receiver lacking the ability to get open, but we’ve seen enough from McCleskey throughout his career to know this isn’t the case.

I have seen some trends from Cornelius that might clue us in. We’ve seen him be pretty accurate on deep outs, hitches, curls and, at times, the fade, but after the Missouri State game, we’ve haven’t seen him make too many throws 8-plus yards over the middle of the field. He did hit Dillon Stoner across the middle and had a good throw to Jelani Woods last Saturday on a deep in route against the Red Raiders, but Corn Dog just doesn’t seem comfortable making those throws consistently.

That being said, I wanted to dive a little deeper into this, not necessarily to justify McCleskey’s reasoning for transferring, but to point out something I’ve seen from Cornelius.

In the first video below, Cornelius throws the fade to Tylan with one-on-one coverage on the outside.

I’m not saying this is the wrong throw to make — you have your go-to guy one-on-one with no safety help over the top — and I’m all for taking a shot down the sideline. But you have McCleskey breaking his route over the middle and finding a hole in the coverage shortly after Cornelius releases the football. The protection wasn’t great, but he definitely had enough time to sit on this, deliver a strike to McCleskey and pick up a good chunk of yards to get out of harm’s way.

Below is a still image from the Boise State game.

Again, the protection wasn’t great here and Cornelius had to eventually escape the pocket, but he had time to make this throw to a wide-open McCleskey over the middle. The middle linebacker came up to cover Justice Hill, so it should have been a fairly easy pitch and catch for TC.

Lastly, I wanted to show another example from last week. Cornelius has to recognize that he has Dakota Allen, a linebacker, on the speedy McCleskey out of the slot. He finally does see him break open, but by this time it’s too late. The play ends with TC having to throw a check down pass to Hill in the flat, which goes incomplete.

Here’s something I’ve noticed over the past two games: Cornelius’ unwillingness to throw the ball an intermediate distance across the middle of the field, which does not bode well for a slot receiver, given how many slot routes go over the middle of the field.

It’s something Cornelius is going to have to get more comfortable with as he leads this team into Big 12 play. The Cowboy Backs up the seam and Dillon Stoner and Landon Wolf across the middle will be open against certain defenses, and he simply has to be capable of hitting those guys when they find holes in the secondary.

Again, this may or may not be the reason McCleskey transferred, but it’s something that I’ve noticed and Gundy literally said “he told us he’s not getting the ball enough.” It’s something we’ll probably continue to see with whoever takes over slot duties, and more importantly, it’s something opposing defenses can key in on.