Halfway Through Senior Season, Rudolph and Washington Better Than Ever

We knew Mason Rudolph and James Washington were going to be spectacular coming into the year, but I’m not sure even the orangest of OSU fans expected what we’ve seen from them thus far.

Through the midway point of the 2017 season, Rudolph leads the nation in yards per game, and Washington does the same in the receiving category. Rudolph is approaching 400 yards per game while Washington is sitting in the 150 neighborhood, which puts him on pace to fairly easily surpass Rashaun Woods’ school record of 4,414 yards.

National QB Rankings

Rudolph is on pace to shatter Brandon Weeden’s single-season record of 4,727 yards. At this pace, Rudolph would hit over 5,000 yards with a bowl game and over 5,500 yards with the bonus of a Big 12 championship. He’s also on track to break the single-season TD record of 37 set by Weeden in 2011.

National WR Rankings

Washington is out of his mind right now. He’s on pace to set the record for receiving yards in a season (currently 1,782 by Blackmon in 2010) and the yards per catch in a season record (currently 20.9) by huge margins. Also his 147 YPG average is the most anyone has averaged since … 2010 when Blackmon averaged 148.5.

“Last year a bunch of people only thought of me about go’s and posts, just deep routes, but I try to maximize every attempt that I get and I see the same thing in my teammates,” said Rudolph this week.

Washington has only had one game of less than 120 yards, and that was when he had 98 against South Alabama in, like, a quarter and a half. Rudolph hasn’t had a game under 300 yards thus far, and he hasn’t even played more than a game’s worth of quarters. They have been even more efficient than they seem.

James Washington has 550 fewer yards and 9 fewer tds than Rashaun Woods. On 99 less touches

— Colin Johnston (@ColinDJohnston) October 15, 2017

As Mark Cooper pointed out, Washington2Rudolph has been more or less a joke so far this season against real college football teams.

That might not be the craziest part. Remember that thought about conventional wisdom, the idea that the more times one throws deep, the more incompletions he will throw? Washington’s 34 receptions have come on 46 targets. Rudolph is completing his throws to Washington 73.9 percent of the time. [Tulsa World]

“It’s so fast and explosive,” Texas defensive coordinator Todd Orlando said of the O-State offense. “Seniors everywhere and playmakers everywhere.

“You get to a point where it’s so polished. You go back and watch them last year, and you say to yourself, ‘wow, unbelievable.’ So credit to their staff, credit to them and their development of players.

“You know you go back and take a look at some of the guys coming out of high school and you know maybe they’re not four or five-star players but they’re seven, eight-star players now. They’ve done a great job developing their talent, especially offensively. They’re impressive and they’re explosive. That’s probably the biggest thing. You turn around and it’s 21-0 over 16 plays. That’s how good they are.”

Indeed, and they’re now tracking for the most efficient offensive season in the last decade.