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After Game 1, What Do We Know About The Run Game?

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8 years ago

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The biggest question we all had coming into Week 1 was whether OSU would have a better ground game than last season. The reality here is that we have no idea if OSU’s run game has improved, and we won’t actually know until either the middle of October or later, but there were some interesting stats being thrown around on Saturday after the Pokes’ 61-7 rout of Southeastern Louisiana.

First up, OSU averaged a pretty terrible 3.8 yards per carry on Saturday. Here’s how that compares to last year’s non-conference games.

  • 2015 Central Michigan: 4.4
  • 2015 Central Arkansas: 4.7
  • 2015 UTSA: 5.4

So that’s not great. But as a lot of people pointed out to me, you have to take QB play and sacks out of it. I’m not sure how QB sacks don’t have to do with offensive line play and the overall health of your team offensively, but OK. OSU averaged 5.3 YPC with its five-man rotation of RBs on Saturday. That’s really solid even against a two-directional school. Again, I’m not a fan of just taking sacks out (this is part of being a good OL!) but it does paint a better RB-only picture which I suppose is the point.

Furthermore, it was even better with its rotation of first-string linemen in there (this stat I’m a fan of). As someone on Twitter smartly pointed out, first string success does not equate to depth. OSU’s starters played a lot in those first three games last year. Not so much on Saturday in Boone Pickens.

That’s nearly 7 YPC (now we’re talking!) So how do those RB-only numbers compare to the first three games of last year? Here is what the 2-3 main RBs did in those games (obviously we also have the issue of what to do with J.W. Walsh’s stats so I just removed him and Taylor Cornelius who averaged nearly 5 a pop on Saturday).

  • Central Michigan: 4.8
  • Central Arkansas: 4.6
  • UTSA: 7.3

So we can *probably* say that OSU’s RBs on Saturday were either better or on par with what they were in the non-conference games last year when you look at RB-only numbers and/or first team-only numbers. This is a difficult comparison because SE Louisiana is woeful. Central Arkansas would probably take them to the woodshed.

Mike Gundy actually seemed mildly encouraged by the way his running backs and offensive line played.

“It looks like to me we’re a little better at it,” Gundy told the Oklahoman. “But we certainly can’t cancel practice. When you’ve struggled as much with running the ball as we have the last two years, you need to make sure we’re sound, covering guys up, blocking, creating holes and running hard. I think they’ve taken some pride in that.”

There’s also the issue of a small sample size which OKC Dave smartly pointed out. To compare stats I’m better off looking at seasons and not trying to compare games across years with putrid teams involved. This mostly just results in false equivalence.

I’ve thought about this for the past ~24 hours, and I think where I’m landing after some breathing room from yesterday is as follows: I’m not going to take this offensive line and run game to Alabama and expect to roll with them, but it does seem improved even if I was sort of “meh” on it on Saturday. I went back and watched some of the runs, thought about how to sort out the stats and considered everything outside of just that poor 3.8 YPC number.

The stats may or may not show that, but the stats for a single game against a crappy team also may or may not show that that 2011 OSU running game was one of its best ever. It’s probably silly to exclusively look at stats for games like this one even if I would like to see some more inflated numbers against awful teams.

My eyes told me OSU was better as a running team on Saturday, if only marginally. It simply looked better than last year. Justice Hill was awesome, Chris Carson ran hard and the other three do a lot of different things very well. Then again, its opponent gets leftover recruits from other single-directional schools in Louisiana so who knows.

It seemed like some people were prepared to say Gundy and Co. made OSU’s running game great again, but I remain mildly skeptical. I think they’re better. They look better. They feel less inept. I like their depth and dudes more than I did last year. I’m curious to see what Thomas Fleming says about this in his Chalk Talks at the beginning of the week.

Like Gundy said, it’s not like it’s time to cancel practice or anything. The next two weeks should provide some better context for how improved OSU’s run game is. I’m hopeful the eye test works out better for us than it did at the end of 2011.

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