Five Storylines to Watch This Season (Part 2)

Yesterday, I broke down the first five storylines to watch for this season. You can read that here. Here are the remaining five storylines I think you should keep an eye on as the season progresses.

5. The defensive tackle position

“It’s not great in the inside,” Spencer told The Oklahoman. “It’s a concern. It’s going to be watched close to see who’s going to be able to play in a game. Those guys are going to have to play with some injury and some pain.

Oklahoma State has plenty of talent at the defensive tackle position, but has hardly any experience. Mote Maile and Vincent Taylor have been named the starters. Behind them, Darrion Daniels, Eric Davis, and Ben Hughes will see plenty of time as reserves. I’m watching Daniels very closely. He’ll have a real chance to reach his goal of becoming the Big 12 freshman of the year.

4. Cornerback position

The cornerback position has the exact opposite problem as the defensive tackle position – there are four guys who are legitimate starting quality corners vying for two spots. With that much talent at the spot, it will be hard to keep that much talent on the sideline or simply rotating between packages. I’m expecting to see Spencer roll out special packages against some of the high-flying offenses in which we see all four corners on the field at the same time. It’s going to be fun.

3. True freshmen in the return game

Mike Gundy made a statement last week when he released his depth chart for game 1, which named true freshman standouts Jalen McCleskey and Jeff Carr as starters on punt return and kick return, respectively.

The Cowboys schedule is vanilla until they face Texas in Austin at the end of September. That’s three full games of live action before more stiff competition. Now you know why Gundy likes to schedule soft early in the season.

2. The development of the running game and ‘The Killer C’s

Jake Trotter coined The Killer C’s, and I selfishly would love for that to catch on. (Carson, Childs, Carr). We know what to expect from Childs for the most part, but we will get a chance to see just how good Carr and Carson are very early on.

I have a feeling it will be more of a two-headed monster with Carson and Childs as the 1-2 punch, and Carr getting snaps as a utility player. But Gundy says “We’d like to have him (Carr) up and running by the middle of October.” He could be more of a threat than most of us expect.

1. NFL draft projections

That topic we all are quietly tiptoeing around … for now. Most draft experts have Emmanuel Ogbah going somewhere in the first round, and could jump into as high as the top 10 in some analysts eyes. Luckily, there won’t be too much anticipation. If you’re holding your breath for him to stay; stop. He’s leaving early.

He isn’t the only guy who could depart early – Chris Carson is an absolute wild card. He has yet to see the field at the Division I level but if he has a breakout year, who knows what could happen.

Not only does he want to get to the next level, he needs to get to the next level. If he looks good throughout the season, the whispers of an early departure will be inevitable.

The real chatter about draft projections won’t pick up until the latter part of the season, but I expect plenty of noise by the time we reach November.

“Hey, you watching?” (Screencap/ Youtube)