Film Look: Two Takeaways from the Cowboy Offense against Iowa State

Oklahoma State lost their second game of the season this weekend, falling 48-42 to the Iowa State Cyclones. This is not only their second loss, but it’s also their second conference loss bringing their record to 1-2 in Big 12 play for the first time since 2006. The Cowboys had 415 total yards and put 42 points on the board, but overall it was a sub-par performance from the OSU offense on Saturday.

I am going to cover two key things from this weekend’s game which stood out to me on the offensive side of the ball for Oklahoma State.

Overall Game Plan

Although it was against Kansas, I thought Mike Yurcich’s game plan in Lawrence was one of his best as OSU’s offensive coordinator. In the Pokes’ first game without slot receiver Jalen McCleskey, and Dillon Stoner out due to injury, Yurcich used Landon Wolf, Braydon Johnson and Cowboy Backs Jelani Woods and Logan Carter at inside receiver. In addition, he used several two-back sets, split the backs out wide and used a lot of motion, including the fly sweep, to keep the defense honest.

However, this past Saturday, I only counted one instance of a split backfield featuring two running backs, fly sweep motion was only utilized twice (within a stretch of three plays in the second quarter), we didn’t see any running backs split out wide and the Cowboy Backs weren’t split out very often either.

Additionally, there was a lot of play action and not as many RPOs as I would’ve liked to see. The play action was also used at weird times, including several third and longs, where you aren’t really fooling anyone. Now, I realize he can’t use the exact same game plan two weeks in a row, but we saw what the motion was able to open up last week against the Jawyhawks.

In the passing game specifically, OSU did not take advantage of what Iowa State’s defense was giving them… the short throws underneath. I talked about it in my key to the game post from last week, but the Cyclones drop eight men into coverage quite often.

In addition, they like to blitz their linebackers, leaving holes in the middle of the field. Iowa State was able to record 7 sacks on Saturday, and the Cowboys didn’t try to combat this at all with quick route concepts (slants, quick outs, etc.), running back screens or tunnel/bubble screens to the wide receivers. However, when they did look to the middle of the field or incorporate the screen game, it worked out very effectively.

Including this second quarter touchdown.

There just weren’t many crossing routes or slants utilized, and from what I saw, they would’ve been open a lot against ISU.

In addition, there were multiple times throughout the game where Taylor Cornelius should’ve hit his check down, but instead forced the ball into tough spots. This included his one interception throw of the day.

I realize the Cowboys needed to score quickly here, down 13 with just over four minutes left to play, but picking up a few yards on second down when you still have two timeouts is better than turning the ball over with a throw into double coverage.

All in all, there just wasn’t a lot of creativity on offense against the Cyclones. For instance, the Pokes had their Cowboy Backs lined up on the line of scrimmage for nearly 50 percent of their total plays, as opposed to having them in the backfield, split wide or lined up as the H-back. I understand that playing the Cowboy Back on the line of scrimmage as a traditional tight end against the tight three-defensive lineman front has its advantages, but it also can get predictable.

Offensive Line Play

All of that being said about the game plan, it’s hard to execute anything properly when you have poor offensive line play. Not only did the offensive line allow the 7 sacks I mentioned above, but the running backs (Justice Hill and Chuba Hubbard) only averaged a combined 3.4 yards per carry on the day.

In addition, I only counted a handful of times where an unsuccessful running play could be blamed on the running backs. And, there were multiple occasions where Hill bailed out the lineman’s poor blocking by making defenders miss at or behind the line of scrimmage and still picking up yards. There were just too many occasions where the line couldn’t open up any holes or create any cut back lanes for Hill.

I think this is by far the worst game the offensive line has played this season. The communication problems we’ve seen this season were prevalent on Saturday and this led to several of the 7 total sacks.

However, some of the blame can be placed on Cornelius as well. He still has a tendency to hold onto the ball too long at times and continues to struggle with his pre-snap reads. In the clip below, you see Iowa State overload to one side. Cornelius should’ve moved Hill over to his right to assist in pickup of the Cyclone blitz. Instead, Shane Richards has two guys coming at him and TC is sacked for a big loss on third down.

Iowa State’s defense caused a lot of problems for the Cowboys on Saturday. There were positives as well coming out of this loss, as TC made some nice throws when he had time and Tyron Johnson, Tylan Wallace and Landon Wolf made some solid plays. However, there is a lot to improve upon as we head into the second half of the season.

Oh… and cleaning up the penalties wouldn’t hurt either.