Daily Bullets (Dec. 9): OSU Nearly Equals Texas A&M in PPD, What Would You Tell Chuba?

Happy birthday to Sister Bullets – she’s a much better person than I am, having a great marriage and wonderful kiddos with a Sooner fan. Fighting the good fight. 

Bullets Rundown

• OSU > Texas A&M via PPD
• Chuba draft thoughts
• Tough to beat a 90 percent team

Scores

• MBB: Wichita State 80, Pokes 61

OSU Bullets

• Here’s something crazy about the matchup with Texas A&M – OSU and A&M finished right next to each other in the “points per drive” metrics.

Overall Rank -> followed by net points per drive, offensive points per drive and defensive points per drive

47) Oklahoma State  0.36    2.50 (#46)   2.14 (#57)
48) Texas A&M           0.31    2.27 (#67)   1.96 (#40)  [BCFToys.com]

Oklahoma State is more prolific offensively – averaging 2.5 points per drive compared to 2.27, while Texas A&M’s defense is allowing less with 1.96 points per drive compared to 2.14.

• Let’s pretend that we’re Chuba Hubbard’s family members and weigh in on what’s best for Hubbard concerning the NFL draft. Here’s what we last saw:

On several occasions, Hubbard was tripped up from behind and fell to the turf instead of breaking away for a monstrous gain through a closing gap, like he’s known to do. OSU coach Mike Gundy credited fatigue to that and Hubbard’s second-lowest rushing total of the season.

“I do think he’s a little bit fatigued,” Gundy said. “The last three weeks or so, he’s not been quite as electrifying as he was early in the season. The reason for that is just wear and tear. We always try to protect those guys, but we haven’t been able to protect him. We’ve had to ride that horse.” [TulsaWorld]

3 things I’d ask him: are you confident you’d be putting better game film out there? With these follow ups – will Dru Brown or Spencer Sanders be your QB? How much better will you look after a good fortnight’s sleep?

What it boils to in my mind is what kind of grade/projection is he receiving. If it’s day three, maybe you play to try and assemble a picture to get to day two. You’d have to have something to gain to risk injury.

• In a tough game against the Wichita State Shockers, the Cowboys didn’t do enough to disrupt the sweet shootings Kansans. 

With 11 minutes to go in the game, the Shockers were 12-for-14 (86 percent) in the second half. Wichita State went from having a seven-point lead at the half to a 22-point lead after that hot start to the second half. The Shockers led by as many as 29.

With Wichita State hitting its shots, the Cowboys couldn’t get out in transition, where they are most comfortable, and by the end of the run, the game was out of reach.  [TulsaWorld]

Something would have to go wrong (for Wichita State) for a rally to fall into place. Shooting 86 percent from the floor doesn’t leave much room for that concept.

• This stat on a consistent OSU bowl opponent surprised.

Though Gundy misses the old Big 12, he doesn’t get a chance to miss it too much. This will be OSU’s fourth bowl game against a former Big 12 team — along with two against Missouri and one against Colorado — in the past seven seasons. [NewsOK]

• Arkansas hired Georgia’s offensive line coach (from Grove, OK) to be their new head coach

• Get your guide for bowl game times and channels here

• Brad Underwood update making the rounds on social media: not doing great at Illinois. I’m not sure Baylor took this long reloading after a tragedy happened in their program.

Brad Underwood, the fastest coach to 40 losses in #Illini history, is now 11-28 in Big Ten play so far in his Illinois career.

He’s now 52-55 (20-37) for his P5 career.

— Big Deff (@BigDeff72) December 8, 2019

• This feels like the first time in a while that the Big 12 couldn’t fill all their slots. Left openings with the Cheez-Its and First Responder bowls.

#Big12FB is ?ing! pic.twitter.com/eW5IsQgG25

— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) December 8, 2019

• Is Vegas vulnerable to an SEC bias? I think Vegas is smart enough to know there is an SEC bias. 

#OKState opens as a 4.5-point underdog vs. Texas A&M, per https://t.co/jjidjSwBvt

— Scott Wright (@ScottWrightOK) December 9, 2019

Non-OSU Bullets

• I think I’ll try this advice that Cal Newport gave his students
• An interesting trend – restaurants popping up with no place to eat and orders sent in through apps
• Watched this movie on marriage last night on Netflix – woof. Compelling and tense but couldn’t stop watching.