Grades: Oklahoma State Fails For a Third Time in Loss to West Virginia

Back in my teaching days, my class had a research paper at the same time every year. After I graded those assignments, I would send edits to my middle school students and give them a chance to make changes to their papers for a better grade. But, almost never would students take the time to correct their mistakes for a better result. That grade would then, obviously, remain the same. 

West Virginia embarrassed Oklahoma State 38-14 on Saturday in Stillwater. It was the Cowboys’ third-straight loss as they start Big 12 play 0-3 for the first time since Mike Gundy’s first season in charge two decades ago. After all this time, the Pokes are back to where they started in Gundy’s 20th season. And it’s been the same issues even during OSU’s three-game winning streak to start the year: defense giving up big plays, offense can’t run the football, quarterback turns the ball over, vanilla play calling on offense, defense is weak on third downs, other teams load the box while out-coaching Gundy and his staff, per Gundy. 

“Our scheme is fine,” Gundy said postgame. “I have to look at that. I didn’t think we run blocked very well. I thought we got pushed around today. Again, I’m on the ground. In most cases, you’re not going to wholesale change in the middle of the season. You have to continue with what you’re doing. You can make small changes, but you have to get better at what you’re doing versus just saying you’re going to go to something new.”

Gundy last week after losing to Kansas State 42-20: “Around here, if you lose a couple of games, the good news is people want to know what’s going on and what’s the solution. Well the solution is, after I graded it Saturday night and then met again with the coaches on Sunday with staffs, we have to get better at what we do and we’ll be fine. Our concepts were just fine. They made some plays and they called some good coaching plays.”

And after losing to Utah 22-19: “We have to stay the course. I didn’t think our plan was very good. I think that they’re pretty good on defense. You know, (Utah) just played better than what you think they should, you know what I’m saying?”

Frankly, I’m worn down trying to be clever on what I’m grading each week when it seems to be the same things, so with that, I’m sticking to the wholesale basics: offense, defense and special teams. Here are my grades from a disappointing day in Stillwater. 

Offense: F

I’ll let the numbers do more explaining than I do this week. The Cowboys got into the end zone twice and scored 14 points against a team that was giving up 28.5 points a game going into Saturday. The Mountaineers were allowing 256.5 passing yards a game. OSU had 191 passing yards against WVU. West Virginia had one interception all season in four games. Alan Bowman threw two Saturday. Opponents were rushing for 153.8 yards a game against WVU. The Cowboys had 36 rushing yards. Even on a curve compared to the opponent, the Cowboys still failed offensively.

Defense: F

Again, the numbers say enough. The Mountaineers put up 558 total yards against OSU, and a whopping 389 came on the ground while averaging six yards a carry. WVU was averaging 410 total yards and 181.5 rushing yards going in. A lot of those yards can be attributed to a handful of plays, as OSU gave up 14 rushes of 10 yards or more.

The Mountaineers scored 38, which actually wasn’t much more than their 31.8 average. WVU was, though, converting only about 33% of third downs. Its third-down conversion rate against OSU was 60%. Again, even on a curve, the Pokes failed.

Special Teams: B

The Cowboys actually weren’t bad in every faze of the game. Even while Gundy admitted postgame how bad the offense and defense were, he still mentioned that special teams was solid.

Special teams even gave OSU some life when Cale Cabbiness returned a kickoff 51 yards to WVU’s 39 in the second quarter. But that explosive play was squandered when Bowman threw an interception four plays later.

Logan Ward booted two of the three kickoffs to the end zone. And OSU punters averaged 43 yards a punt while Hudson Kaak pinned WVU inside the 20 once.

Yes, Saturday was so bad that we finished this by diving into special teams stats.